In Minnesota, the death rate for COVID-19 patients over 60 was 0.01 per thousand residents. For people over 80, it was 0.34 per thousand. Not bad at all and certainly nothing that would justify shutting down the state. 

For nursing home residents in the state, the death rate was the highest in the nation: 28 per thousand. In other words, if you were 80 or older but didn't live in a nursing home, your chances of dying from COVID were minor; if you lived in a nursing home, you were at enormous risk--about 100 times greater. That's from a Duke University study on the policy, which states:

COVID-19 case and death rates were strongly related to long-term care setting the period January through May 2020, 78% of Minnesota’s 28,523 COVID-19 cases were recorded for individuals younger than age 60. In contrast, 93% of 1,217 deaths were recorded for people 60 or older, and 62% of deaths were of people 80 and older. The prevalence of cases per 1,000 persons in each age group was .51 cases for ages 1-59, .49 cases for age 60 and older, and .98 cases for age 80 and older. Mortality per 1,000 persons was .002 deaths for ages 1-59, .009 deaths for age 60 and older, and .34 for age 80 and older 8. Among nursing facility residents, on the other hand, we estimated a prevalence of 143 cases per 1,000 residents and 28 deaths per 1,000 residents 9. Residents in long-term care settings accounted for only 21% of Minnesota’s total COVID-19 cases, yet they experienced 81% of total COVID-19 deaths. There were striking differences in the distribution of resident cases and deaths by the setting in which people resided (Figure 6). Of Minnesota’s total COVID-19 cases through May 2020, 22,625 (79%) were among people residing in community settings (private residences), while 2,973 (16%) of cases were nursing facility residents or staff, 1,243 (4%) were assisted living residents or staff, and 179 (1%) were memory center residents or staff. In sharp contrast, only 238 (19%) of deaths were among individuals in the community. Among the 913 deaths in long-term care, 615 (56%) were of residents of nursing facilities, 267 (22%) were residents of assisted living facilities, and 31 (3%) were residents of memory centers.

Over 80% of COVID deaths occurred in nursing homes despite their being incredibly locked down. For instance, family members couldn't visit out of concern that they might transmit the virus. 

So, how did it get in there?

Tim Walz put people recovering from COVID-19 in the same homes as healthier patients. 

There's been a lot of talk about Andrew Cuomo's policy of killing off the elderly in New York, but Walz's policies were at least as bad. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that Walz's policies were much worse than Cuomo's since he kept sending COVID-infected patients into nursing homes far longer than Cuomo. 

For some reason, nobody in the media is talking about this issue, despite Andrew Cuomo's policies being in the news lately. New York's numbers are greater because the population of New York is larger, but person for person, Walz is as big a murderer. 

Walz kept the policy of releasing still-infectious patients back into nursing homes long past New York's decision to reverse its policy despite the issue generating a lot of controversy. Walz insisted that the policy wasn't a mistake, long after it was clear that people were dying because of his choice. 

Minnesota has the worst rate of nursing home deaths in the nation: 80% of deaths come from LTC facilities, which represent 1% of the population. National average is 50%.

— David Strom (@DavidStrom) May 9, 2020

I was fighting this battle throughout the pandemic, pointing to Governor Ron DeSantis' decision to ban returning COVID patients back into nursing homes. It was an obvious move, but since it was done by DeSantis, every Democrat immediately rejected it. 

Florida chose to protect their nursing home residents, and the result is that fewer than 40% of COVID victims lived in nursing homes. @GovTimWalz and @MDHCommMalcolm decided to go the other direction, and over 80% of MN deaths are from LTC facilities. That is a scandal. https://t.co/E8H2C7VClg

— David Strom (@DavidStrom) May 20, 2020

In 2021, my friend Jay Duggan wrote about the policy, looking back at the unnecessary deaths caused by Walz's decision. This was not a case of making an unavoidable error in the fog of war; Minnesota's death rate at nursing homes was twice the national average and Walz defended his policies regardless. 

Why was Walz seeking to point the finger at school sports, small business dining and restaurants, and family gatherings as the vectors spreading COVID? Because in November 2020 Minnesota still had a near 70% total average of deaths occurring in nursing homes/long term care (LTC) directly under his direct supervision. King Walz refused to use the convalescent facility purchased for COVID infected seniors still recovering after hospital treatment, and had ordered recovering COVID infected seniors BACK INTO NURSING HOMES. To deflect from the terrible COVID results coming from his neglect in LTC King Walz fingered the unproven spread vectors of children, small business, and family gatherings as the activity shutdowns necessary to protect seniors in LTC and to preserve vital COVID hospital bed capacity. If Governor Elder Killer really wanted to preserve the precious few ICU beds for the COVID sick and to protect LTC workers and seniors from contact with COVID, WHY DID HE COORDINATE WITH FAIRVIEW TO CLOSE THE 90 COVID BED BETHESDA HOSPITAL TO START THE 2ND LOCKDOWN? AND THEN ARRANGE TO SEND THE COVID INFECTED RECOVERING BACK INTO NURSING HOMES INSTEAD?

There was no hospital bed shortage. There never had been. Hospitals and other medical facilities were laying off doctors and nurses because there weren't patients to treat. 

Thousands of health care workers were laid off and thousands of hospital beds were left empty as hospitals focused on only treating the sickest COVID patients. Elective services were suspended, hospitals lost money hand over fist, and nurses exited health care, in some cases permanently. You have probably noticed staffing shortages in the medical system. Thank COVID shutdowns for that.

So Walz had a choice: keep still infectious patients in the hospital or return them to nursing homes. He chose the latter and killed hundreds. They died without their families, too, as nobody was allowed to visit their relatives. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was among those warning that nursing-home populations were at increased risk of being infected by — and dying from — the coronavirus, with the sick and elderly most vulnerable.

However, Walz’s administration wanted to rush sick patients back to such homes, despite warnings that they did not allow safe distancing or the level of prevention needed, the Park Rapids Enterprise made clear at the time.

The policy has since been scrubbed from the public-facing Minnesota government website, according to Fox News, which used the Wayback Machine to find it.

“Patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 who still require transmission-based precautions for COVID-19 can be transferred to congregate living facilities,” the policy said.

“It is the recommendation of MDH that patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 can be discharged when clinically indicated and neither discontinuation of transmission-based precautions nor the establishment of two negative COVID-19 tests is required prior to hospital discharge.”

I believed then and still think now that Tim Walz is a monster. He knew what he was doing. And, contrary to what he claimed, the federal government warned the governors that this was dangerous. But he did it anyway. 

If I were a cynic, I would think it was to save the state money by killing off an expensive demographic, but is anybody that sociopathic? 

Tim Walz has never been held accountable for his manslaughter by depraved indifference. Soon, he may be one heartbeat away from the presidency. 

The Harris/Walz campaign's slogan should be: failing upward.