Eight months into the pandemic, Minnesota is navigating a new phase of COVID-19, reporting record high daily case totals.
Minnesota health commissioner Jan Malcolm described what this upward trend could mean for the state.
“We do need to understand that more cases are going to lead to more people with serious disease (potentially, with long-term complications we are only beginning to understand), more people in the hospital and more deaths. We need to brace ourselves for that,” said Malcolm.
If cases continue to rise, Minnesota could experience what’s been happening elsewhere with hospitals running out of beds and out of staff to tend to COVID patients—on top of heart attack, cancer and accident patients. Schools might have to shift to virtual classrooms. And businesses, faced with sick employees, might have to close.
Yet, Commissioner Malcolm also pointed out that we have it in our power to reverse the trend.
“If we all do the things that we know matter and help to prevent and limit the transmission of the disease, we will have a far different and far better next few months until we get to that time when safe and effective vaccines are widely available,” said Malcolm.
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