A number of Republican state lawmakers are blasting Governor Tim Walz for re-instituting some COVID restrictions. Representative Cal Bahr from East Bethel says the state went into a shutdown last spring to build hospital and I-C-U capacity, and now the governor says we aren’t prepared and have to shut down again. Prior Lake Senator Eric Pratt says, “It simply looks as though virus faded during the warm summer months and came back when it got cold again — just as everyone predicted. We should have been prepared for this, and another round of lockdowns won’t change that.” Walz responds, “My favorite was the people who don’t wear masks and say, your mask mandate didn’t work. No, it didn’t work maybe as well as it could have, if we would have got 95 percent instead of 65 percent compliance.”
State Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan says shutting down youth sports is “probably the worst decision Walz has made throughout the pandemic. The data shows that youth sports aren’t responsible for the spread of the virus.”