Good morning. It's a chilly morning and some in northern and central Minnesota are waking up to the first frost of the fall. For Wednesday, mostly sunny north, mostly cloudy south with a chance of rain. Highs in the 50s. Check out the Updraft for more details. President Trump came very close to flipping Minnesota in 2016, as he upset Hillary Clinton with a surge of rural support in other northern industrial states that Democrats banked on, like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump only lost Minnesota by about 44,000 votes, a margin he hopes to overcome in 2020.
Both Donald Trump Jr. and Jill Biden planned visits in the state on Wednesday, a sign that both campaigns see Minnesota in play as Trump maintains strong support in rural areas.
The president hopes that what led to victory in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will extend to Minnesota, where his response to COVID-19 and racial justice protests has support in rural areas.
With newly confirmed COVID-19 cases rising steeply the past few weeks and college students and kids returning to school, state health officials have been concerned about young adults as spreaders. That reality came into focus Tuesday in Winona. Winona State University announced an immediate 14-day campus quarantine that will limit all non-essential activities on campus for the next two weeks to slow the spread of COVID-19. While less likely to feel the worst effects of the disease, experts worry youth and young adults will spread it to grandparents and other vulnerable populations and that such outbreaks could cripple attempts to reopen campuses completely to in-person teaching.
Young adults within their 20s make up the age bracket with the state's largest number of confirmed cases — more than 19,000 since the pandemic began, including nearly 11,000 among people ages 20-24. High school-age children with confirm cases have also grown recently, topping 7,400 total cases for children 15 to 19 years old since the pandemic began.
Here are Minnesota’s latest COVID-19 statistics:
- 1,862 deaths
- 81,608 positive cases, 74,235 off isolation
- 257 still hospitalized, 135 in ICU
- 1,616,738 tests, 1,201,870 people tested
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine study paused while the company investigates if a report of a patient with a serious side effect is linked to the shot. Late-stage studies of the company's vaccine candidate are on temporary hold while it investigates. The pause in vaccinations covers studies in the U.S. and other countries. Late last month, AstraZeneca began recruiting 30,000 people in the U.S. for its largest study of the vaccine.
- HealthPartners announced last week that they planned to enroll at least 1,500 volunteers in the study. A HealthPartners spokesperson said they will try to continue enrolling volunteers after the evaluation is complete.
All this as nine drugmakers signed a safety pledge Tuesday that they won't submit a vaccine candidate for the FDA to review until their safety and efficacy is shown in large clinical trials.
The City of St. Paul plans to clear its largest tent encampment Thursday, as it continues to try to find places for people to stay as the weather worsens. The tent encampment of nearly 80 people below Cathedral Hill stretches along a railing above Interstate 35E.
-- Matt Mikus, MPR News @mikusmatt | 
