Coronavirus in one state (58)

I may need to call on the spirit of Houdini to escape from this series, but why stop when the good news continues to accumulate? In the data reported late yesterday morning, the Minnesota Department of Health attributed only 15 new deaths to COVID-19. Eleven of the 15 new deaths occurred among residents of long-term care facilities. Of the 1,298 deaths attributed to the disease by the Minnesota authorities to date, 1,030 are deaths of LTC residents — 79.3 percent of total deaths.

At last word, roughly 98 percent of all deaths attributed to the disease have occurred among LTC residents with serious underlying medical conditions or other mostly elderly non-LTC residents with serious underlying medical conditions. When the Minnesota Department of Health last reported the median age of death of all decedents, it was 83.5.

Here is a question I would like to ask Health Commissioner Malcolm if I were afforded the opportunity to ask one at the daily televised press briefings from which I have been excluded since April 27: why don’t you use your briefings to identify the serious underlying medical conditions that place Minnesotans at higher risk of death from the disease and warn them to take care of themselves?

Life in lockdown continues in Minnesota as Governor Walz continues to set the dials of our lives. It is long past time for him to give up the emergency powers to which he clings and set us free.

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