A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
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It has been a difficult few weeks in Minnesota, as Covid-19 continues its rampant spread across the state, leaving record-smashing case numbers and a devastating toll of hospitalizations and deaths. Gov. Tim Walz announced an effort Tuesday to tamp down the spread, as he imposed new statewide restrictions on bars, restaurants and social gatherings. What do the new restrictions entail? Starting Friday, bars and restaurants can no longer serve alcohol and food to in-person customers after 10 p.m., but they will be allowed to sell to-go orders. Pe... 
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State health officials have said for months that accurate and accessible testing is a key tool in understanding and combating Covid-19 in Minnesota. The most commonly administered Covid-19 tests in Minnesota are diagnostic tests, which determine whether you are infected with the coronavirus at the moment you're tested. Those are the tests that the state reports in its daily updates - and the tests that help epidemiologists understand the spread of Covid-19 across the state. There are two types...
Gov. Tim Walz made it clear Wednesday that the Covid-19 pandemic will get worse in the near term before it gets better. “We’ll be unfortunately announcing numbers today: positivity rates above 20 percent and unfortunately we are going to have the highest death count since this began with 56 Minnesotans dying,” he said in an MPR News interview Wednesday. “This is just inevitable if we do not change our behaviors and take some mitigation efforts, this will continue to spike.” Minnesota’s previous record was 36 deaths, reported last Friday. On...
When the 14-day Covid-19 rate in Carton County came in at 20.54 Thursday, Oct. 29 - surpassing 20 cases per 10,000 residents - it meant school districts needed to consider moving all students to a hybrid learning model. But state officials also say that the county-level data is only a starting point: school districts should also consider the number of confirmed cases, quarantines, and close contacts in their school community, at each school building, and other data such as individuals with...
While it was notable last week when Covid-19 cases broke a record when they jumped by 21 cases in a day, that was just the beginning. Multiple single-day records have been set in the county since then, and overall cases rose from 483 on Oct. 28, to 679 on Wednesday, Nov. 4, an increase of 196 cases in seven days. From Tuesday to Wednesday of this week alone, the numbers jumped by 50. The state also tracks Covid cases weekly by zip code, with results released every Thursday. By zip code, Cloquet...
When Jeff Walther was transferred to the intensive care unit at Essentia-St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, he was greeted by nurse Amanda Valentine. She would spend 16 hours with him that day as the pastor at Esko's St. Matthews Lutheran Church struggled with the effects of acquiring the Covid-19 virus. "When I say it was an absolute joy caring for him that day, it was," Valentine wrote to the family. "He was so nice, pleasant, and funny, and he made my double go by so quickly." Valentine had...
With a full moon and above-freezing temperatures predicted for Saturday, it might have been the perfect Halloween. Except we're in the middle of a pandemic and heading into a long cold winter with Covid-19 cases on the rise. With all that in mind, Raiter Clinic Dr. Ken Ripp said "a hard no" to trick-or-treating as normal. While handing out candy - with a mask and gloves - is probably not a super high risk for a healthy person with no underlying conditions, Ripp said it is the folks out...
Carlton County saw its second death from Covid-19 this week — Esko pastor Jeff Walther — along with a sharp rise in the number of positive cases. On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Health reported a total of 483 cumulative cases in Carlton County, a jump of 21 from the day before and a single day high for the county. Wednesday’s number represented a two-week rise of 128 cases, up from 355 on Oct. 14. It took two months for the number of cases to rise by that amount from July to Septe...
Minnesota Public Radio spoke with Dr. Beth Thielen, an adult and pediatric infectious diseases physician at the University of Minnesota medical school, and John Jost, who runs the city of Anoka’s annual Halloween celebration, about the ways the holiday is changing this year. They shared a few suggestions to help navigate this year’s celebration amid the pandemic. Adjust expectations Many traditional Halloween traditions, like trick-or-treating, involve face-to-face interactions with lots of different people. But this year, in order to pre...
Covid-19’s toll in Minnesota continued its grim ascent Tuesday with the Health Department reporting 15 more deaths, nearly 2,200 more cases and a record number of hospitalizations. Newly confirmed cases were up on relatively low testing, skyrocketing the positive test rate above 15 percent — more than three times the threshold officials say is concerning. It’s a jump so startling that MPR News checked with the department to see if it was an error. It was not, although it’s unclear yet if this is an anomaly or evidence of a problematic trend....
Although positive Covid cases in Carlton County are rising rapidly, Cloquet schools plan to stay the course for at least another week. On Thursday, the number of positive Covid cases in the county crossed the 20 per 10,000 mark -- the point at which the state recommends a shift to hybrid learning at the elementary school levels -- but Cloquet superintendent Michael Cary says the schools will remain in hybrid learning for grades 7-12 and in-person learning for grades K-6. New numbers are released every Thursday. District officials advised...
Esko school district officials are living the adage that “change is the only constant in life” as they have consistently been adapting protocols this year to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Their newest plan revision, decided on at Monday night’s regular board meeting, will help if the number of Covid-19 cases in the area climbs beyond the next benchmark. The district has spent the entire year so far at Level Two of the state’s “Safe Learning Plan.” This means that K-6 students have been learning in person daily while middle- and high school...
Carlton County school superintendents were among 35 different school districts in the Northland to send a heartfelt message to residents Friday. Help us keep kids in school, they said. Wear your masks, wash your hands, observe social distancing guidelines, keep family and social gatherings outdoors, and stay home if you’re sick. Just four weeks into the school year, many schools across Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, Pine and St. Louis counties have had to move to more re...
Enrollment numbers are down slightly in Cloquet, and superintendent Michael Cary said he's blaming the usual culprit these days: Covid-19. In a discussion with Cloquet school board members Monday, Cary said open enrollment numbers are down between 25-30 kids this fall. At the same time, they've seen an uptick of about 20 kids who are homeschooling this year (which is different from distance learning, because it is not run by the school district), and a "giant decrease" in kindergarten numbers. "...
Some local schools are reacting to a rise in local Covid-19 cases with a change in learning styles, while others are holding steady, largely because they started the school year doing something other than in-person learning for all grades. The trigger for the change is a "county health number" put out by the Minnesota Department of Health every Thursday morning that shows a two-week average of Covid cases per 10,000 people. Last Thursday, that number came in at 11.24, crossing the benchmark of...
Positive Covid-19 cases are on the rise statewide and in Carlton County, with 320 cumulative positive cases reported Wednesday, up from 286 the week before. Carlton County has still reported only one death from the virus since March. Anyone who has symptoms of Covid-19 or who has been exposed to someone they think may have the disease is encouraged to seek testing. Symptoms can include fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, headache, muscle pain, sore throat, fatigue, congestion, or loss of taste or smell. Other less common symptoms...
Fond du Lac Human Services nurses Caitlan Rodgers, Ashley Anderson and Samantha Martin greet people as they arrive at the free pop-up Covid-19 testing clinic Tuesday, providing everyone with a fresh mask to put on before heading inside to the gym where the testing stations were set up. Public health educator Ali Mueller said they had up to 1,600 tests available for the three-day clinic Tuesday through Thursday (Oct. 6-8). The testing clinic was a joint project of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake...
Carlton County superintendents joined a group of superintendents from 35 different school districts in the Northland to ask the public to follow guidelines to help stop the spread of Covid-19, which is spiking across the region and the state. Find the full text of the letter below: Friday, October 8, 2020 To: Constituents in Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, Pine and St. Louis Counties: We’re writing to you today to ask for your help. We are four weeks into the year and already schools in our seven-county region have h...
Cloquet students in grades 7-12 will switch to a hybrid learning model starting next week because of an increased number of people in the county testing positive for Covid-19. Superintendent Michael Cary sent this email to families Thursday afternoon: Under the Minnesota Safe Learning Plan issued by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), schools are guided to shift to a hybrid plan for secondary students when county rates of COVID increase above 10 cases per 10,000 county residents. Our most...
Positive Covid-19 cases are on the rise statewide and in Carlton County, with 286 cumulative positive cases reported Wednesday, Sept. 30, up 40 from the week before. That follows an increase of 27 over the previous week, which was triple the number of new cases from the week before that. Meanwhile, the 14-day rate per 10,000 people reported by the Minnesota Department of Education was 6.75 last Thursday, but the reports lag behind real-time infections by about two weeks, school officials acknowledge. So while the 6.75 number allows schools to...
Story by Catharine Richert / MPR News Just after midnight, President Donald Trump revealed on Twitter that he tested positive for COVID-19 — a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide. His diagnosis comes after a close adviser, Hope Hicks, tested positive, but also after a whirlwind week of campaign stops and travel, including to Minnesota on Wednesday, where he attended a fundraiser at a private home in Shoreview and a rally in Duluth. Trump’s diagnosis raises myriad questions, including how public health officials wil... Website
Been feeling a little under the weather? Worried you may have been exposed to the coronavirus on that recent trip? Take care of that niggling worry with minimal fuss — at a three-day testing clinic through Thursday at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College. Testing is available to anyone who feels they need to be tested whether they have symptoms or not. The clinic is also free — you don't even have to bring an insurance card — and simple: all it takes is about 10 seconds of a cotton swab...
Wrenshall superintendent Kim Belcastro didn’t need to say it. Her face told all. “It’s been a tough week,” she told the school board Tuesday night during a special meeting. The day before, she announced that the school would be going to full distance learning because of staff shortages related to Covid-19. It means there will be no on-campus classes for elementary students who had been attending twice a week and high school students once a week. The special meeting Tuesday resulted in school board members agreeing that pre-kin...
Positive COVID-19 cases in Carlton County increased more slowly over the past week, rising from 210 on Sept. 9, to 219 total cases on Wednesday, Sept. 16 with still just one death from the virus reported since March. There has been one positive case each reported at the Esko secondary school and Churchill Elementary school in Cloquet. School officials ask that parents keep children at home if they are showing symptoms or may have been exposed to someone with Covid, and alert the school. And school leaders ask that community members wear masks...
The first day of school, Esko confirmed a case of Covid-19 in a secondary student. This week, Cloquet’s Churchill Elementary reported its first confirmed case — a student with exposure dates of Sept. 9-10. Superintendent Michael Cary said school leaders worked with the Minnesota Department of Health and a Regional Support Team. The school did the contact tracing. They notified any students/staff “who are considered close contacts and need to quarantine as a result,” Cary said. A letter sent to...
