Minnesota’s two-week Stay at Home order takes effect tonight at 11:59 pm. To ensure critical information about COVID-19 is accessible to all Minnesotans, the Walz-Flanagan Administration partnered with TPT to provide closed captioning and translate PSAs into eight different languages (English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Russian, Amharic, Karen, and Oromo). You can access those videos here. In the PSAs, Governor Walz tells Minnesotans to help stop the spread of COVID-19 by staying home, describes the efforts the state is taking to protect Minnesotans, and directs them to the Minnesota Department of Health Website for more information.
Actions Today
Governor Tim Walz today signed Executive Orders 20-21, 20-22, 20-23, and 20-24 providing support and greater flexibility for health care providers, commercial drivers, local governments, and constitutional officers in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Executive Order 20-23 will keep health care workers in the workforce by giving health-related licensing boards flexibility in licensing requirements so COVID-19 related lapses in continuing education requirements don’t impact health care professionals’ ability to provide licensed care. The Executive Order allows health care professionals to temporarily defer continuing education requirements, allows emergency medical service providers to complete continuing education through distance learning, and extends temporary permits for nurses. While continuing background check requirements, it defers fingerprinting requirements until the end of the COVID-19 peacetime emergency and allows the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy to put limits on dispensing Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine to prevent shortages.
Executive Order 20-22 allows the State Auditor to work with local governments to adjust reporting deadlines for various financial reports, to prevent municipalities from having to divert resources that should be used to respond to communities’ critical needs during the COVID-19 peacetime emergency.
Executive Order 20-21 amends Executive Order 20-07 to allow constitutional officers to implement leave for both classified and unclassified employees and to reassign and redeploy staff as needed.
Executive Order 20-24 provides hours of service and weight restriction relief for commercial vehicle drivers hauling livestock. The Order will help ensure producers and retailers maintain supply of essential products.
Everyone can work to reduce the spread of COVID-19
- Cover your coughs and sneezes with your elbow or sleeve, or a tissue and then throw the tissue in the trash and wash your hands afterwards.
- Washing your hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom or before eating. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
- Avoid touching your face – especially your eyes, nose and mouth – with unwashed hands.
- Stay home if you have cold- or flu-like symptoms, for seven days after your illness onset or three days after your fever resolves without fever-reducing medicine, and avoid close contact with people who are sick.
- Up-to-date guidance from MDH on recommended community mitigation strategies can be found here.
Resources
- mn.gov/stayhomemn
- Apply for Unemployment Insurance
- Minnesota Department of Health Updates
- About COVID-19
