2020-12-02 P & R Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Emergency Executive Order 20-99 Implementing a Four Week Dial Back on Certain Activities to Slow the Spread of COVID-19 I, Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and applicable statutes, issue the following Executive Order: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present an unprecedented and rapidly evolving challenge to our State. Minnesota has taken extraordinary steps to prevent and respond to the pandemic. On March 13, 2020, I issued Executive Order 20-01 and declared a peacetime emergency because this pandemic, an act of nature, threatens the lives of Minnesotans, and local resources are inadequate to address the threat. Since declaring the peacetime emergency, I have extended it every 30 days, with the most recent extension occurring on November 12, 2020. Throughout the month of November, the data has made clear with each passing day that we need to take decisive and aggressive action to contain the most recent phase of the pandemic. Minnesota recently topped 240,000 total confirmed COVID-19 cases. It took Minnesota over 6 months to record 100,000 COVID-19 cases, but only 42 days to add an additional 100,000 new cases. We averaged a state record of over 6,000 cases per day over the previous week, and on November 14 we witnessed a record number of new cases (8,689). Today we mark another grim milestone, grieving the loss of 67 of our neighbors, the highest number of deaths in a single day. The Minnesota Department of Health’s (“MDH”) most recent weekly COVID-19 report found that the current average rate of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions, and deaths are the highest they have been since the start of the pandemic, far exceeding the numbers we saw in the worst points of our surges in April and May. Minnesota’s rate of “community spread”—meaning those cases that MDH cannot link to another case or a source of exposure—is particularly concerning. At least one third of all new COVID-19 infections in Minnesota have no known source. According to metrics developed by the White House Coronavirus Task Force (“Task Force”), Minnesota is officially in the “Red Zone”—the most critical level of concern—for two main indicators of uncontrolled spread: test positivity rate and new COVID-19 cases. MDH reports that the statewide percentage of positive COVID-19 tests has been steadily rising for the last four weeks, exceeding the 10% “Red Zone” threshold 1