Minnesota Health Experts Urge Patience with New Mask Order

ST. PAUL, Minn.– It could take weeks until health officials have results from the mask mandate across the state of Minnesota that started its first full week Monday for all indoor public places.

Over the weekend, 80 complaints were filed with the health department about overcrowding, social distancing, and masking.

This comes as the state is now recording 51,843 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic started, which includes recoveries.

Minnesota has seen more than 1,500 deaths from the virus with 646 new cases were reported today.

“Don’t be discouraged that our case numbers were large today. We only started masking, the mandate only started on Saturday so we want people to keep in mind that we expect it to take a full three weeks or more to really see the impact of that,” said Kris Ehresmann, Director of Minnesota’s Infectious Disease Division.

State health officials say they are not nervous about kids going back to school with the current outbreak in Minnesota. But they caution how fast COVID-19 data can change.