The second most powerful person in Minnesota government, Senate Republican Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, is pushing back hard against Governor Tim Walz extending his stay-at-home order. Gazelka tweeted today Minnesota is ready for the COVID surge with three thousand hospital beds, compared to New York State needing less than five thousand I-C-U beds at the height of its crisis. Gazelka asks, why shut down Minnesota business for a New-York-sized surge? The governor responded this afternoon, “I hope that I am as wrong as can be, about the needs on those beds, but all of the data shows me that I cannot risk that at this time.”
Walz pledges to change course if the facts support it, but says he can’t “throw caution to the wind and pretend like our neighbors’ lives are somehow disposable.”