What happened to the ‘Minnesota moons hot’?

A good chance of rain for the day. Twin Cities highs in the mid-70s. Statewide, some thunderstroms mixed with showers in the east with highs in the 70s. Cooler on Lake Superior, in the 60s. More on Updraft | Forecast

Last month, part of Gov. Tim Walz’s “moonshot” testing plan called for 15,000 daily serology tests. Also known as antibody tests, they’re blood tests that detect if someone has been exposed to the new coronavirus. Health leaders hailed antibody tests as critical to understanding how wide COVID-19 has spread in the community.

But Minnesota has yet to issue guidance on antibody tests. And there’s no statewide effort to offer antibody testing for certain groups, which means there’s no consistency in who’s getting serology tests.

Some serology tests are unreliable and there are lingering questions regarding how well even the best tests work. Plus, scientists are unsure whether the presence of antibodies means a person has any protection from getting COVID-19 again. “If you get a result and you are positive, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are protected from getting infected again. That is the piece that we still need to learn,” said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, the state epidemiologist.

Here are the latest coronavirus statistics:

19,005 confirmed cases via 180,971 tests

842 deaths

2,432 cases requiring hospitalization

534 people remain hospitalized; 233 in intensive care

12,696 patients no longer needing isolation

If you haven’t heard, the State Fair has been canceled for this summer. It was the only choice, said General Manager Jerry Hammer. "We all love the fair. And that's exactly why we can't have a fair this year," he said. "This is about playing the long game; this is about the future of the fair. This isn't about doing something now. This isn't about risking everything on a bad bet. This is about doing the right thing for the future of the fair.”

Restaurants say they’re ready to open safely, but the governor won’t let them. Many establishments had plans in place for increasing sanitation and creating distance in their dining rooms before Walz released a reopening plan that allows limited, outdoor-only service.

Some were even changing their spaces’ designs. Brian Ingram, owner of St. Paul’s Hope Breakfast bar, said he understood the need to close at the start of the pandemic. “Businesses needed to be closed to get their heads around what’s going on. That was difficult, it was financially crushing,” Ingram said, “but we understood that there needed to be some closure for us to get a handle on this, and really, frankly, for us to start redesigning our restaurants.”

Intensive care units are filling up. Officials said Friday that some in the Twin Cities are within 5 percent of their normal capacity. If needed, state leaders say they can add surge capacity quickly.