Health Officials Urging MN Schools to Follow COVID-19 Guidance

Minnesota health officials are urging school districts in the state to follow their COVID-19 mitigation guidance regarding masking, distancing, and quarantining.

Children under the age of 12 cannot be vaccinated yet, and while hospitalization rates for kids remain extremely low, hospitalizations for COVID-19 among kids are up.

“If we look at what proportion of cases [are] in children – less than 10 were hospitalized last fall – we were seeing about 0.7% of the cases in children being hospitalized, and now we’re seeing that at 1.5%,” said Kristen Ehresmann, Minnesota Department of Health Director of Infectious Disease. “So that is still a low number, but that is a doubling of what we saw last fall and that is definitely concerning and as [MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm] said, we’re seeing more and more cases of illness in this age group.”

On a positive note, state health officials report that 70% of Minnesotans aged 12 and up have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine.