It is time to take this virus very seriously by wearing the face mask, social distance and washing your hands as the CDC has recommended. At yesterday's press conference, one hospital administrator said, " this doesn't have to be forever because once a vaccine becomes available to protect us from this deadly virus we can resume life just as we did before the onset of Corona virus.

 CORONAVIRUS 573135781

November on track to be Minnesota's deadliest month for COVID-19

72 deaths set another record as infections put strain on hospitals. 

By Glenn Howatt Star Tribune

 

NOVEMBER 20, 2020 — 8:52AM

ELIZABETH FLORES – STAR TRIBUNE

Amelia Smith, 12, took a test at the new saliva COVID-19 testing site at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday, Nov.12, 2020.

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Seventy-two more people have died of COVID-19, Minnesota health officials reported Thursday, setting yet another grim daily record for fatalities in a pandemic that promises to only get worse.

Minnesota is averaging 33 deaths a day and has reached unseen death counts six days this month. November is on track to become the state’s deadliest month of the pandemic, with 625 fatalities in 19 days. That accounts for 20% of the 3,082 deaths so far. The entire month of May saw 696 die from COVID-19 complications.

“It pains me beyond belief to know, with almost certainty, that each day I am going to stand in front of you and tell you that we have another record number of deaths,” Gov. Tim Walz said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases in the state was the second-highest reported so far, with 7,877 additional infections, bringing the state’s total to 249,906.

The surge in cases and deaths is affecting the state’s hospitals and causing state health officials to question their approach to investigating and tracing the flood of illness that is sweeping across Minnesota.

As was predicted, the expanding pool of people infected with the new coronavirus has disrupted business as usual.

“As an emergency physician right now, this has been one of the hardest times in my life,” said Dr. Carolyn McClain, who is on the board of the Minnesota Medical Association.

She recently had to tell a patient who had shortness of breath that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

“When you do that to someone in their nineties, they know what that means,” she said, adding that the patient told her, “ ‘I don’t think I’ve been this scared since I fought in Korea.’ ”

Days later, he died.

“I am watching people die, and that is hard, and it has been going on for a long time,” she said.

McClain was among three health care professionals who spoke at Thursday’s news conference, asking state residents to follow pandemic safety guidelines, especially as hospitals scramble to cope with new patients.

“Don’t call health care workers heroes if you can’t put a piece of cloth or paper over your face to protect them,” said Dr. Cindy Firkins Smith, co-CEO of Carris Health, which serves west central and southwestern Minnesota.

Carris and its parent company, CentraCare, have 1,200 workers out due to either COVID-19 infection, quarantining because of a high-risk COVID-19 exposure or caring for a sick family member.

“Because the virus is so widespread in our communities, they are catching it just like anyone else,” said Smith.

Forty-two percent of the patients at the Carris Health Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar are there because of COVID-19. The test positivity rate in the city is 30%.

For 10 of the first 11 days of November, the hospital diverted patients to other hospitals because there was no bed space.

“This is an historically unprecedented number,” said Smith.

Carris officials are shifting patients among hospitals to free up those beds that are needed for the most critical patients while still giving care to those who don’t have COVID-19.

“It’s musical hospital beds,” she said.

In one week, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide has shot up 25% to a record 1,751. Of those, 367 need intensive care to stay alive. About 80% of the state’s ICU beds are occupied, according to the state’s pandemic response dashboard.

With diversions, the system is handling most of the demand, but that might not last if COVID-19 cases continue to increase.

“We are perilously close to not even be able to collectively … take care of everybody that we need to take care of in this state,” said Dr. Penny Wheeler, chief executive of Allina Health, where 24% of its patients have COVID-19.

“We have over 800 [workers] out at Allina,” she said. “There’s no surge of other providers available.”

CentraCare, announced Thursday that each of its hospitals would serve a dedicated function to take pressure off its flagship hospital in St. Cloud.

“At St. Cloud Hospital, approximately 30 percent of our patients are positive with COVID-19. The additional resources needed to care for these patients is stretching this location,” said Dr. George Morris, CentraCare incident command physician.

While the St. Cloud location will continue to care for COVID-19 patients with the greatest needs, the Sauk Centre hospital will primarily care for COVID-positive patients who do not require ventilators or high-volume oxygen.

CentraCare’s Melrose and Long Prairie hospitals will shift to non-COVID care, while its Monticello hospital will expand COVID-19 capacity.

Bloomington-based HealthPartners said Thursday that 92% of its ICU beds were occupied, while 87% of its general medical/surgical beds were full. Patients with COVID-19 were using about 30.5% of all occupied beds, according to a HealthPartners spokesman, and about 48% of all ICU beds.

HealthPartners, which operates Regions Hospital in St. Paul and eight other hospitals, also imposed a no-visitor policy as other hospitals have done.

Most people who need hospital-level care have underlying health conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity or congestive heart failure.

Many people who become infected with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or don’t experience any symptoms, but they still can be infectious to others. About 198,400 of those who were sickened are considered to be past the infectious stage and no longer need to be isolated.

Cases are growing so fast in some counties that investigations into new COVID-19 infections have been suspended.

“As we continue to witness record-setting increases, Olmsted County Public Health Services does not have the capacity to continue conducting case investigations and contact tracing for every individual who tests positive for COVID-19,” the southeastern Minnesota county said in a statement earlier this week.

Itasca County, in northern Minnesota, made a similar announcement last week.

“If you are in a group setting, just assume that someone has COVID,” said Kelly Chandler, department manager for Itasca County Public Health, which is focusing its efforts on protecting high-risk settings such as schools, child care facilities and long-term care.

Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said that her department is evaluating how it will handle contact tracing in order to put “resources into where they have the biggest impact.”

“The time when contact tracing works the best is when you are really able to focus on hot spots,” she said. “It is really hard to even find hot spots in the middle of a raging forest fire.”

 

Staff writer Christopher Snowbeck contributed to this report.

Glenn Howatt has been with the Star Tribune since 1990 where he has specialized in health care reporting and data journalism.

glenn.howatt@startribune.com 612-673-7192

The problem with this Pandemic is it isolates us and makes us more depressed and in some cases we watch people die from suicide

 There really isn't any easy way to monitor suicides of those who died suddenly.  I guess there is enough shame in the thought of suicide that most families do not want to admit the fact their loved one took their life.  But, I think if we dig deep into this subject we will find a pandemic of sorts from suicide.  Being told to social distance, to assume that everyone around you has Covid-19 while staying from groups of people is really a recipe for depression and suicide.  I've learned that we are social beings who thrive when we're around friends.  Zoom and Microsoft Teams may work from a business standpoint, but it is a poor comparison to our much deeper need for real, shoulder-to-shoulder friendships.  I remember Chad Hartman describing his father Sid dying when he finally gave up after having his freedom to go places, see people and give them a hard time taken away from him. Chad also clarified that Sid did not die from Covid, but he died from isolation.   This Washington Post article highlights the devastating effects of virtual learning has on young People.  Education

Parents, students push colleges to open more in spring: ‘I wish I was in a dorm with my friends’

Georgetown University sophomore Eric Lipka, 19, started college on campus in Washington, D.C., but is now taking classes remotely from Jacksonville, Fla. Lipka is waiting for the school to announce its plans for the spring and is considering taking a leave from studies in the next semester. (Bob Self for The Washington Post)

By 

Nick Anderson and 

Lauren Lumpkin

November 13, 2020 at 2:40 p.m. CST

With many classrooms and dormitories lightly used or even empty during this strange, pandemic-shadowed fall term, pressure is mounting for colleges and universities to bring more students to campus in the next semester despite the recent surge of the coronavirus.

Students are tiring of remote instruction, and parents are tired of paying for it. Many also point to schools that have managed to house and teach large numbers in person this fall and wonder why, with adequate safeguards, that can’t happen everywhere.

“The quality of education, it’s just not the same,” said Eric Lipka, a sophomore majoring in government at Georgetown University. The 19-year-old from Connecticut is taking remote classes from an apartment in Jacksonville, Fla., as the Jesuit university in the nation’s capital is teaching mainly online. Lipka who said the forced regimen of education at a distance is taking a toll in terms of academics and mental health, might take the next semester off.

“I chose Georgetown for the resources available on campus,” Lipka said. “The city of D.C. and what it provides. Not having access to any of that is a hindrance, I believe, to my progress.”


Georgetown expects to announce its spring plans on Monday. About 500 students with special circumstances live on campus now. Officials say they might be able to accommodate more, but they have ruled out returning to normal levels of in-person activity at the 19,500-student university for the rest of the school year.


“I can appreciate the disappointment that comes with the virtual learning environment and the desire for a physical connection to our campus home,” Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said last month in a video message. “Particularly for those who are new members of our community. This is not how any of us would like to be operating.”
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Higher education leaders are caught in a vise. They are eager to move toward normalcy, and thereby secure tuition and housing revenue in a perilous fiscal climate. But they are also fearful of public health missteps that could hasten the spread of a virus responsible for the deaths of at least 243,000 people in the United States.

As of September, about 37 percent of four-year colleges were running fully or primarily online, according to data from a crisis-monitoring initiative at Davidson College in North Carolina. About 34 percent were teaching primarily or fully in person. Most of the rest had a mixed approach, known as hybrid learning.


Some schools that opened up significantly were quickly overwhelmed by the virus and forced to scale back or pause in-person instruction. Others that brought sizable shares of students to campus, including Duke, Cornell and Purdue universities, have avoided shutdowns. There is growing consensus that widespread and frequent viral testing can help identify potential clusters of infection early enough to stop the spread.


The fall opening of colleges: Upheaval, pandemic weirdness and a fragile stability


“We have templates of this working,” said Christopher R. Marsicano, an assistant professor of the practice of higher education at Davidson.
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Georgetown University is expected to announce its plans for the spring semester on Nov. 16. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Georgetown, like many universities, taught classes mostly online during the fall semester. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Johns Hopkins University said Nov. 2 that it would bring undergraduates to its main campus in Baltimore for in-person classes in the spring term and test them for the virus twice a week.


Many students at other schools who are unable to live on campus are growing restless.


Jonathan Sewell, 20, a sophomore at George Washington University, eats whatever his parents prepare for dinner. His school is in the District of Columbia, but he takes classes online from his childhood bedroom in Lynchburg, Va., and studies alone.


Meanwhile, Sewell’s twin, Christopher, a sophomore at the University of Lynchburg, lives on that school’s campus and can study in the library.



“I wish I was in a dorm with my friends. He has all his friends around,” Jonathan Sewell said of his brother. “It seems that his school is listening to students about their opinions, whereas GW is hearing our complaints, then saying, ‘We hear you, but we don’t care.’ ”


The university, which has about 500 students on campus, is teaching remotely. Last month, GWU said it would expand the student presence modestly but continue teaching mostly online. Officials say an additional 1,100 students have applied for spring housing and will move to the Foggy Bottom campus next semester. That’s far fewer than the roughly 6,500 who would ordinarily live in university housing.


GWU’s decision shocked many families.



“We understood why they decided to pull back in the fall,” said Samara Ghougassian, of Duluth, Ga., whose son is in his first year at GWU. “There was so much unknown.”


But since then, she said, other universities have shown that residential education can succeed. “We want our freshmen students to be given as much of the freshman experience as possible, and watching them be denied that . . . it’s just not right,” Ghougassian said.

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Experts say caution is warranted because the pandemic remains dangerous and unpredictable. Lynn Goldman, dean of GWU’s School of Public Health, said the university wants to avoid sending students home abruptly.

“We don’t want to find ourselves in a position where we have created the environment where the virus can go out of control and then we have to take a drastic measure like that, which we are seeing in many other instances,” Goldman said.


College students are weary of ‘Zoom U.’ But they’re also trying to make the best of it.

Eric Lipka attends a psychology class virtually while sitting at the dining room table in their Jacksonville apartment. (Bob Self for The Washington Post)

Elsewhere in Washington, Catholic University and Trinity Washington University have each housed some students this fall and taught some in-person classes. American University is delivering classes online but plans to invite more students to campus next semester and expand in-person teaching. The University of the District of Columbia, which is teaching remotely, has not yet announced spring plans.

Howard University, in a message to students, said it will continue teaching remotely and introduce at least two mental health days — time off that will hopefully mitigate some of the stress around virtual learning — officials said. The school will make a decision about bringing more students back to campus by Sunday.

Kylie Burke, 20, a junior at Howard, said the remote fall has robbed the university community of the chance to gather for landmark occasions such as the election of Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) as vice president. Harris is a graduate of Howard.
“We haven’t been able to truly, fully celebrate everything that’s going on,” said Burke, who is living off campus in D.C. But she worries that a full opening of campus could bring risks to the neighborhoods around Howard.



“We would get a win, as students, to come back,” Burke said. “But if that ends up impacting our immediate community, that wouldn’t really be worth it.”

At Princeton University, which is operating remotely, officials say they expect by December to decide on spring plans. To lobby them, a group of parents and students from the Ivy League school has sprung up on Facebook to “Bring Back Princeton.”
Daniel Flyer, 18, a freshman at Princeton, is living in an apartment in Brooklyn with two high school friends who, like him, have begun college remotely. One attends the University of Pennsylvania and the other is enrolled at the California Institute of Technology. Flyer is forging ahead with a full slate of online classes, but he said it is far from satisfying to be so isolated from classmates.

Flyer wanted the immersive feeling of residential education, on the Gothic campus in New Jersey. Instead, he got “this crazy other thing.”

“Never in a million years could have imagined this is how my college experience would start,” Flyer said. But he said he is optimistic that “they can make something happen for the spring.”

The Good Lord Bird | Series Premiere | Full Episode (TVMA)- one of the famous abolitionists during the civil war.

As I was having lunch I listen to an interview between the actor who played John Brown and the CBN entertainment reporter.  I learned that John Brown was a strong Christian believer who had a heart for the enslaved black people of the south.  This is a new series on Showtime that will inspire you of the way God used him to free the black slaves.  Just when we think that God isn't working we find out that He really is.