Month: October 2020

The Minnesota Department of Health released the latest COVID-19 test results and Polk County reported 48 new cases in the last 24 hours.  Roseau County has 28 new cases, Pennington County had 11, Marshall County has six, Norman County reported four, and Red Lake County reported three new positive tests.  Minnesota reported 2,167 confirmed positive tests and 15 deaths. 
All the information is below.  

Updated October 27, 2020
Updated daily at 11 a.m., with data current as of 4 p.m. the previous day.

Data is for cases that were tested and returned positive. All data is preliminary and may change as cases are investigated. Many data points are collected during case interviews. Data presented below is for all cases, regardless of interview status. Data for cases pending interview may be listed as “unknown/missing.”

The COVID-19 case definition was recently updated to include antigen testing. Previously, cases were only reported through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. Positive PCR test results are considered confirmed cases. Positive antigen test results are considered probable cases. Confirmed and probable cases are reported separately in the following areas:

• Newly reported cases
• Total approximate completed tests
• Total positive cases
• Total cases by county of residence

Death, hospitalization, demographic (age, gender, race), likely exposure, and residence type data combine PCR (confirmed) and antigen (probable) cases for an overall total.

All probable cases get the same public health follow up and recommendations as cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Other Statistics

• Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children (MIS-C) Statistics
• Minnesota COVID-19 Public Dashboard
• Minnesota’s COVID-19 Response and Preparation Capacity
• Dial Back Dashboard
• CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in the U.S.
• Minnesota COVID-19 Modeling

The Crookston Fire Department responded to the following calls on 10/26/2020

At 11:36 am, the CFD responded to a call on the 1500 block of N. Broadway for a fire alarm activation. Upon arrival, it was found that maintenance was doing some cleaning and dust had activated the detector. CFD reset the alarm and turned it over to maintenance and cleared the scene.

The candidates for the Crookston City Council Ward 3 seat are incumbent Clayton Briggs and his opponents Blake Royal. We asked each candidate to introduce themselves and why they are running.

Q: Would you please tell us about yourself?

Clayton: I was born and raised in Crookston. A lifelong member of Crookston. I’m married for 46 years. Two kids, both live in Crookston, and four grandchildren. I restore old cars as a hobby and like riding my trike with the wife.

Blake: I’m Blake Royal. I was born and raised in town here. Also, my wife Natalie was born and raised. We have two children, a six-year-old son, and a two-year-old daughter. We started out living here and decided to move to Grand Forks. We were both working there. When it came time to have kids we thought Grand Forks was too big and decided we wanted to move back to small-town Crookston. Got here and saw the way the council was acting. I told my wife I don’t know if I can watch this much longer, I might have to run. And with her blessing, I decided to run for Ward 3.

Q: Why are you running?

Clayton: I want to see different things we’ve started as far as the park. The campground starting. See-through the rest of the UMC putting that plant out there on the south end of town. And continue with the downtown stuff, see if we can get things going there.

Blake: I’m running after watching some of the conflict and things going on. I thought we can do better. I don’t think anyone on the council was out to an agenda or anything, I just think we need to work better together. Watching the way council worked with CHEDA, CVB, the Chamber – we could all have the same mission statement if written properly but we’d argue over who is going to be in charge. We need to move Crookston forward together and I think we need to put away some of our personalities. And just do what’s right for Crookston and move forward.

Q: Anything you would like to add?

Clayton: I appreciate the last six years I’ve been on the council and I would ask for their support for another four years.

Blake: We have to champion Crookston. We have a beautiful hockey arena we need to use. We need to get more things in there. We need to get more activities for the kids to get young families to town. Keep them in town. If we don’t, we’re just going to be an older town dying out. We need to promote ourselves better than we do now. I think I touched on it in the debate tonight that our city website and Facebook page is woefully inadequate. We can’t have 16 posts in a year and to be honest, half of them were just duplicates. So, we need to do better. I’m looking forward to the new city administrator, that she’ll take charge, help the council move in the right direction, and promote this city.

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The Crookston School District announced Highland Elementary School had had two positive COVID-19 test results on Monday afternoon.  The two new cases are the third and fourth positive test for a student, teacher, or staff in the Crookston School District since the start of the school year.  “It actually shocks me that we have had so few cases in our district,” said Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “I watch what our district nurse has done, Polk County Public Health has done, and how they get on it quickly, that is a great strategy to limit the spread.”

The district still hasn’t seen COVID spread through the school yet, which is why they have only had four positive tests so far this school year. “The cases weren’t a spread type of thing, but it was two isolated incidents, and we got the spread under control,” said Olson. “Honestly, as you look at the demographics and the spread throughout the state, you can see we are going to get numbers.  Now it’s about making sure we contain it and protect those who are vulnerable, and we are using strategies that contain the spread within the school.  It has been coming from outside the school, and we haven’t seen spread in the school.”

Superintendent Olson said for any parents/guardians with concerns, they can contact him by stopping by his office or call him on his cell phone at 218-770-8717.