Good morning. Welcome to September. State health officials worry that family gatherings and backyard events may be driving the current "alarming" spread of COVID-19. Parents, meanwhile, are looking at other options for heading back to school. Happy meteorological autumn! Sunny & pleasantly mild Tuesday. High temperatures today will be mainly in the 70s with the Twin Cities reaching about 75. Wednesday will be several degrees warmer. Dry weather will be on tap for most of this week with a few chances of showers mainly across northern Minnesota. More on Updraft.
Private and faith-based schools are not bound by the state’s guidance on reopening during the pandemic, and many are opting to start the year with face-to-face instruction. As a result, some of these schools are seeing a surge in applications. “When Minneapolis announced that they would be doing some kind of distance learning, our enrollment boomed,” said Paul Berry, principal of Our Lady of Peace in south Minneapolis.
Bringing students back into the classroom as safely as possible prompted many changes at Our Lady of Peace. A committee of faculty, staff, parents and pastors within the school community came up with new protocols to minimize the chances of spreading the coronavirus at school. The school will be following Gov. Tim Walz’s mandated mask order, for one.
Commissioner Malcolm: "We've been kind of walking on the edge of a cliff." Family gatherings, backyard events with friends and other get-togethers are driving the current “alarming” spread, and the state’s health commissioner says if Minnesotans don’t alter their behavior “what comes next is going to be worse.” State public health leaders sounded an alarm Monday that Minnesota is headed for serious trouble unless more Minnesotans start doing the right things, including wearing masks and socially distancing even at meetups with friends and family. "We cannot afford to have this Labor Day weekend further accelerate the community spread, because if that happens, what comes next is going to be worse," Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm warned on Monday. “For a while now, we feel we’ve been kind of walking on the edge of a cliff.”
Here are the latest coronavirus statistics in Minnesota: 75,864 cases confirmed (679 new) via 1,489,726 tests (10,882 new) 1,817 deaths (one new) 6,480 cases requiring hospitalization 306 currently hospitalized; 131 in intensive care -
67,656 patients no longer needing isolation
-- Matt Mikus, MPR News | @mikusmatt | 
