Partly sunny today with a chance of flurries or light freezing rain. Highs will be near 20 north, to the mid-30s south. Find the latest on Updraft.
Nurse Jessica Mistic walks past the room of a COVID-19 who is off isolation but still needs care for complications from the virus or other health issues in Bemidji, Minn., in September 2021.
Biggest wave of new COVID cases hits Minnesota
Minnesota is seeing unprecedented COVID infections, with more cases than the state has ever seen before. New data from the state's Health Department shows cases topping 11,000 in tests from a single day recently, even with millions of Minnesotans vaccinated. The numbers don't count the untold numbers that are taking tests and finding out they have COVID at home.
And these aren't just numbers.
Garbage isn't getting picked up in some places. Some police and fire departments are straining to keep cops and firefighters on the street. In Osseo, the district's schools are sending kids home again for the rest of this week and next week, after nearly a quarter of the staff got sick.
The state's seven-day rolling average of hospital admissions is up more than 45 percent since Christmas Eve, back over 200 a day. Health experts fear that even a glancing blow from omicron may prove a staggering one-two punch for the state's health care system.
What else we're watching:
Clyde Bellecourt, a leader in the Native American struggle for civil rights and a founder of the American Indian Movement, has died. Bellecourt was a co-founder in 1968 of the American Indian Movement, which began as a local organization in Minneapolis that sought to grapple with issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans.
A judge denied another attempt to bar cameras from the courtroom in the trial of the three cops charged in George Floyd's death. Judge Peter Cahill rejected a motion by Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Keung who said they fear broadcasting the proceedings will make it hard for them to get a fair trial. The men face aiding and abetting charges in the killing.
