Governor Lays Out Action Plan for Expanded COVID-19 Testing, Response, and Hospital Capacity Issues

(KNSI) — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz laid out his plan for expanded COVID-19 testing and response and an action plan to assist hospitals, which are becoming increasingly crowded due to the continued spread of coronavirus.

Governor Walz is putting the National Guard on alert to help provide staffing for long-term care facilities and to help with a new community rapid testing program. The program will open at three sites – Hutchinson, Crookston, and Stillwater – and at least three additional locations to be announced. The rapid testing sites allow people showing COVID-19 symptoms to take an antigen test and get results in a few minutes. St. Cloud’s test site is located at the St. Cloud Armory and is open Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Friday testing appointments were just recently added. Additional details about the new rapid testing options will be available early next week.

The governor is also ordering expanded access to the COVID-19 Emergency Staffing Pool, which allows long-term care facilities to request short-term emergency temporary staffing if they’re experiencing a staffing shortage due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at their facility. Workers eligible to be deployed include Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Direct Care Support Workers, Unlicensed direct care providers such as nursing assistants, resident assistants, or CNAs. The Emergency Staffing Pool can provide temporary staff for up to 14 days or 80 hours of work until permanent staff can return to work following an outbreak of COVID.

The Minnesota Department of Health says as of October 14th, there have been more than 19,000 cases of COVID-19 at long-term care or assisted living facilities statewide.

Governor Walz is also directing the Department of Human Services to free up capacity at state long-term care facilities. He says the state will do that by transferring about 400 patients out of the hospital and into a lower level of care if they are healthy enough to be moved.

At a press conference at North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale Friday morning, Governor Walz says, “Don’t end up in the hospital if you can help it.”

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