On Friday, Gov. Tim Walz announced a loosening of some of the COVID-19 restrictions concerning everything from indoor social gatherings to sports games to weddings and proms.
The announcement comes after a month of dropping daily case numbers, low case-positivity rates and a drop-off in hospitalizations and deaths. It also comes as more than 20 percent of Minnesotans, and 70 percent of seniors, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Minnesotans should continue to take simple steps to protect the progress we’ve made, but the data shows that we are beating COVID-19,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement Friday morning. “The most vulnerable Minnesotans are getting the shot, and it is becoming increasingly more safe to return to our daily lives. The sun is shining brighter.”
As of noon on Monday, March 15, the following will be allowed:
- Social gatherings can have up to 50 people outdoors or up to 15 people indoors. There will be no limit on the number of households in attendance. Previously, indoor gatherings could include up to 10 people from no more than two households. Outdoor gatherings could include up to 15 people from no more than three households.
- Youth sport pod sizes can increase to 50 for outdoor sporting activities. Pod sizes were previously 25.
- Religious services will no longer have an occupancy limit, but social distancing remains a requirement. The previous occupancy limit was 50 percent capacity.
- Bars and restaurants can go from 50 percent capacity to 75 percent capacity, up to a limit of 250 people, and tables must remain six feet apart. The limits to indoor and outdoor capacity are considered separate, and parties of up to four can sit at bars. Establishments must continue to close by 11 p.m. DEED Commissioner Steve Grove said the closing time was tied to data about when restaurant and bar outbreaks are likely to occur.
- Salons and barbers will no longer have occupancy limits, but social distancing will be required. Occupancy limits were previously set at 50 percent capacity.
- Gyms, fitness centers and pools can go from 25 percent capacity to 50 percent capacity. Outdoor classes will have a new limit of 50 people.
- Entertainment venues can go from 25 percent capacity to 50 percent capacity, indoors and outdoors, up to 250 people.
Grove said Friday that the DEED will release a calculator to help venues determine their capacity under the new guidelines.
On Friday, Walz sounded buoyant about what the loosened guidelines mean for sports. “Wonderwall will be there, a little bit social distanced, but fans are back in the stadiums,” he said, referencing a standing room-only part of the Allianz Field soccer stadium. The Star Tribune has more on capacity in sports stadiums here.
Starting Monday, large venues will be allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, for up to 250 people. Social distancing remains a requirement. Venues with capacity of over 500 under normal conditions can add more guests starting April 1, per the following:
- Seated outdoor venues can have an extra 25 percent of their capacity over 500, limited at 10,000 people.
- Non-seated outdoor venues can have an extra 15 percent of their capacity over 500, limited to 10,000 people.
- Seated indoor venues can have an extra 15 percent of their capacity of 500, limited at 3,000 people.
- Non-seated indoor venues can have an extra 10 percent of their capacity over 500, limited to 1,500 people.
As of April 15, working from home will no longer be required “but it will continue to be strongly recommended,” the statement says. It encourages employers to accommodate workers who want to continue working from home.
The Walz administration urged Minnestoans to remain cautious and continue to wear masks, particularly in the face of more-infectious variants now circulating. On Thursday, the state announced its first detected case of the more-infectious variant first detected in South Africa. Minnesota has also confirmed clusters of the more-infectious U.K. strain and had the country’s first case of the Brazil variant.
Walz planned to announce the changes and hold a press conference at 11 a.m. on Friday. MinnPost will update this story after that.
So far, 1.16 million Minneotans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Walz said that Minnesota could vaccinate an additional 700,000 people by the end of the month.
He said he expects all Minnestoans to be made eligible for a vaccine by May 1, the day President Joe Biden announced Thursday night should be states’ goal.
“It’s going to be weeks, not months, before all of you are going to get the opportunity to get a shot. Please take it. Plase roll up your sleeve and take these shots,” Walz said.
He said he expects more frequent changes to COVID-19 restrictions in the coming weeks, assuming the numbers continue to look good.
He also said he will extend his declaration of a peacetime emergency for another 30 days on Monday when the current order expires.
Reactions to the announcement
On Friday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-East Gull Lake) called on Walz to end his emergency powers and move things further back to normal.
“A number of states have started ending their emergency powers, over a dozen states no longer have a mask mandate, there is definite movement toward back to normal. We renew our demand that the governor remove his emergency powers so that we can work together, hand-in-hand,” he said.
House Republicans praised the loosening of restrictions in a Zoom press conference Friday morning, but called on Walz to announce changes sooner in the future so businesses can plan ahead.
“Good days are ahead, I think we can start saying to Minnesotans we are starting to live again,” said House Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Dave Baker (R-Willmar).
Baker noted that Republicans had been calling on Walz to open things up further, and also suggested the governor include the Legislature in future planning.
“I urge you to tell us in 30 days if we double the immunizations, if we are going in that right direction, can we count on an earlier announcement of what, then, it might look like for other events,” he said.
The Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, which represents bars and restaurants that serve alcohol and liquor stores, likewise argued Walz should lay out a plan that includes health-based metric and dates. The association also criticized the capacity increase from 50 percent to 75 percent in bars and restaurants.
“[The increase] is only helpful to a small handful of larger establishments, as most bars and restaurant’s capacity is already capped at a much lower percentage due to distancing rules,” a statement said.
Great idea,What could go wrong?Just look at the upward curve in Carver county with the UK virus.
There were 1,100 new cases yesterday and 1,100 new cases again today. I will continue to stay home.
Too soon
Earth to Minnesota — Betsy from Florida reporting in — We have been open since a 3 week shutdown last March. Just wanted to let you know our numbers have never “skyrocketed” up. In fact, other states who have gone through the ubiquitous shut down (LIke MN) there numbers are on average the same as ours. So I guess shutting down the economy ( with the losses born by the average small business) didn’t make a damn bit of difference. We’ve been saying that all along, and obviously it falls on deaf ears. This didn’t need to happen. I find it odd, all the right wing Repubs I know are not taking the vaccine, while Dems line up. How did something like this turn into politics? I have no idea
It became political when the Great Helmsman declared the pandemic was exaggerated to make him look bad.
How would you even know? Florida has lied and suppressed information, and silenced people who have tried to speak out.
I’ll take my governor who tells the truth here in Minnesota. Florida is a joke of a state.
Gazelka still doesn’t get it. His only interest is in hassling Walz.
Finally I see some comments that make sense, if you are afraid of COViD stay home. That is fine with the millions of Minnesotans that want to go back to living their lives. That is the way it should have been from day one! The 2 week to “slow the curve” to eliminate a flood of hospital stays, never happened, hospitals were empty. Children were super spreaders, not true. The virus lived for days on surfaces, laughable. Asymptomatic people could still pass on the virus, no study has shown this to be true. The virus was deadly to all people, not true, folks under 70 have very little to fear. Herd immunity can never happen,false, with 30-45% of folks having natural Tcell immunity, folks that have already had the virus and the vaccine, herd immunity is here. The list of fear mongering using COViD is too long to write.
Finally, there is some personal responsibility taking place. If you are a double masker go ahead wear 3 for all I care. If you feel restaurants, gyms, bars and weddings are super spreaders, don’t go! If everyone is a major danger to you stay in the basement.
I am shocked that Minnesotans actually followed these “rules” that never proved to be true, for a year. Just goes to show how strong the media, politicians and the shame on you crowd is. Thankfully, one can decide for himself what is best…. Strangely, that individual freedom actually scares some people.
joe….When you said, “folks under 70 have very little to fear”. You forgot the “Not True”. If you would check the daily Covid stats for Minnesota you would see that the deaths are moving downward in age….several days ago, one 50, 2 40’s, and one 30. Plus, the deaths in the rest homes are less than one-half of the daily total. The “chickens are coming home to roost” for the Trumper bar hoppers.
Dennis, over 80% of the COViD deaths are from folks 70 and older. If you are under 70 the chance of you dying is small..
So, would you have preferred the way things were done in South Dakota with their death rate?
I’m going to hazard a guess that you don’t know anyone who has died from COVID.
It takes perhaps 10 minutes in Google Scholar to disprove all of your factual assertions. I’m not going to bother to point you to the information that contradicts you, because it contradicts you and is therefore suspect.
You don’t want to believe the science. That’s your choice, but it’s horrendous public policy. Your inconvenience, and your disgust at people “hiding,” are recipes for making the pandemic worse. Machismo is not a public health measure.
The belief in these kinds of falsehoods not only caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people more than would have otherwise died, but closed a lot of businesses and cost a lot of jobs. But that’s the Republican way.
Yes, I was disappointed to see Walz opening up the state the rest of the way when cases are *increasing* in Hennepin County. A couple of weeks ago, they were 150 per day, and now they are at 180 per day.
It is the Republicans jumping up and down and whining who have pressured Walz into making this move, and if cases continue to rise, they will then blame him.
Just how long exactly are we supposed to lock down? Another Month, Year, Forever? The intent around the lockdown has always been so we don’t overwhelm our capacity to care for people requiring hospitalization. Have you looked at how many Covid-19 Patients are in the hospital now? A Very, Very low number. Without a viable economy we do not exist as state. Even when we open up totally, remove the mask mandate, etc, Covid -19 will still exist.
There can be no viable economy if thousands of people continue to be at risk of death, and if many 10’s if not 100’s of thousands of people continue to feel at risk of serious illness or death. The false bravado of conservative pandemic deniers does not persuade those not of the same mind, the only thing that will bring a viable economic recovery is the GENUINE end of the pandemic, something that the foolish “bravery” of those inclined to dismiss the opinion of experts will continually delay.
False Bravado?? We are at risk from any multitude of things every day of our lives. There is statistically no difference between the states that locked down hard, vs those that didn’t. Look at the 4 largest states. New York, California, Texas and Florida. 2 had hard lock downs, and 2 didn’t. If lock downs were so effective, the death rates would be drastically different. They aren’t.
You don’t suppose there are differences between those four states that could have something to do with transmission, do you?
Seattle went into a hard lockdown three days before WHO declared COVID was a pandemic. Now, their death rate is the lowest of the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the country 64/100,000). The rate for Miami is nearly three times as high.
Yes, false bravado, because it exists only in the ABSENCE of genuine threat. I know many folks like you and Mr. Smith, the tough-guy, “I must take risks to LIVE!”, routine evaporates immediately upon the leveling of real life consequence. Such folks literally cannot fathom the worst occurring to themselves or loved ones, at the core they truly believe themselves immortal and invulnerable (which, in my opinion, goes hand in hand with an utter incapability to recognize the role of blind chance in day to day life), and as such can only be made to see reason in the face of total personal catastrophe.
The irony of course is that our economy would be in much better shape if people had taken Covid precautions seriously. Sadly, Republicans like to kill jobs and shutter businesses. Fortunately, the world’s greatest business failure/game show host is no longer president and things will turn around.
It would be interesting to see an article focused on the slew bankruptcies due to medical debt. Indeed, there may be little reason to fear death, but what can we as a state (and a nation) expect for the millions of survivors who were hospitalized and underinsured?
Pre-COVID, various studies estimated that between 40 and 66 percent of personal bankruptcies involved medical debt.
Well, with all due respect to our rightwing talking point spewers, I think I’m going to wait for the CDC to evaluate the effectiveness of the states that adopted more restrictions than those that didn’t. Somehow, I’m just not too inclined to listen to the “conservative” internet epidemiologists, despite their current fantasies of having been “right all along”. We’ll see if Dr. Fauci agrees.
CA and NY were two of the initial epicenters of the pandemic. In the early days of the virus, treatments were unknown and likely more people died than would have if those states had been hit later in the game as TX and FL were. Had CA ad NY not locked down early, their death rates would have been much higher, almost certainly. The proper comparison with our two large Red States is probably with larger (pro-science) states that experienced the epidemic later on.
And of course, there is reason to suspect both FL and TX of lying about their stats, as they have a clear anti-science Trumpian political agenda to peddle. I’ll wait to see the number that can’t be gamed by them, the final excess death approximations from our two noble “Covid is a hoax” states. I’ll also wait to see how just how well their state economies actually performed even with fewer restrictions, as anyone with an ounce of common sense in those states (i.e. many Dems) was taking precautions not to be killed by covid, and staying away from bars and packed restaurants. Just because their Trumpite governors lied about the virus, doesn’t mean non-ignorant people believed them and did as they pleased.