The 2020 PROJECT

No surprise, but 2020 has been brutal on everyone's mental health

Sarah Mearhoff — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 15:00:00 GMT

ST. PAUL — It’s been more than 11 months since the first confirmed case of the novel COVID-19 illness was identified in the United States.

Within just a couple of months, life changed for most Americans.

In Minnesota, for instance, Gov. Tim Walz ordered residents to stay at home to curb the spread of the virus. Face masks became common, as did working from home and quarantining. Americans stocked up on hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Family members did not see each other for months, if at all.

For weeks, restaurants were devoid of the usual bread-breaking and conversation. Houses of worship fell silent. Unfinished worksheets sat in children’s unoccupied desks. There was no gossip around the office water cooler.

Life was at a standstill.

The situation has evolved, but the entire country continues to walk on eggshells, as it has for months. Milestones such as weddings and graduations have been postponed and families have connected over video screens rather than hugs. Millions have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases kept climbing, as did the brutal virus’s death toll. In mid-December, the nation reached a horrifying benchmark: 300,000 Americans reported dead due to COVID-19.

And as the virus itself wreaked its havoc, political tensions reached a fever pitch: The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May sparked worldwide calls for racial justice. The nation turned out in record numbers to vote in one of the most furiously contested presidential races in history. As the stakes got ever higher for a nation struggling to beat back a pandemic, political debate grew hotter than ever, sometimes violent.

So, it’s been a hard year. Americans in the Midwest and across the country are feeling isolated, burnt out and in mourning.

The toll on mental health

Still in the throes of the pandemic, it will take time before mental and behavioral health professionals can measure the full impact the pandemic and mitigation strategies have had on the minds of Americans. But according to a snapshot study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late June, 40% of adults surveyed reported they were struggling with mental health or substance abuse — “considerably elevated” levels compared to normal times, the report says.

Sue Abderholden, who serves as executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Minnesota, told Forum News Service that the mental health organization’s helpline calls are up 35% compared to normal call volumes.

At first, she said she thinks people were “hunkering down,” just trying to get through the first two months or so. But then she said it seemed to dawn on the public: “This isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon.”

She said there are a variety of factors this year that could have exacerbated mental health needs: months-long feelings of uncertainty and fear, economic anxiety, limited child care options, loss of routine, a lack of physical space for those living in small or multigenerational homes, rising political tensions, extreme isolation, grief for lost loved ones as well as what she called “ambiguous loss” over canceled events and milestones — the list goes on.

For those who have long-standing mental health needs, widespread virus mitigation measures may make it harder to access care. The pandemic has been hard on providers, too, and many are strapped for resources. Many doctor’s appointments have been moved onto virtual platforms, and while telehealth can be a godsend for many — especially in rural areas — it doesn’t work for everyone.

“Some (patients) need that face-to-face time rather than over the telephone or text messaging,” said Brenda Bergsrud, who chairs North Dakota’s Behavioral Health Planning Council.

In an October news release, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said the mental health of children through the pandemic was of “utmost concern” to her. With most students distance-learning for at least part of the year, children and young adults have been particularly vulnerable because of their altered routines and lack of socialization. Additionally, while learning from home, students are away from educators who can normally watch out for signs of mental and emotional distress. And some students regularly receive care and counselling from professionals while in school.

Same storm, different boat

The pandemic and mental health needs have affected some populations differently than others. As Abderholden said, we are all weathering the same storm, but in different boats.

Since March, people of color have borne the brunt of much of the pandemic, seeing disproportionate rates in job loss, COVID infections and deaths from the virus. And since long before the pandemic, Abderholden said historic disparities in health care access and cultural differences in mental health discussions have all impacted people of color’s ability to get the care they need.

Women have also carried a heavier burden since March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The pandemic has also sparked what some have called a “female recession,” with thousands of mothers leaving the workforce to take care of their children as schools went virtual and already limited child care options shriveled.

According to the bureau, for the first time since 1948 — when they first began tracking the metric — female unemployment reached double digits in 2020.

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For lower-wage earners across the country, COVID-19’s economic fallout kicked them when they were down. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, even before the pandemic, the stress of precarious family finances has been linked to negative mental health care outcomes and substance use. And a lack of financial resources, insurance coverage or community care options means it can be near impossible for low-income Americans to get help.

According to a September survey conducted by Pew Research Center, lower-wage earners were more likely than middle- and upper-income earners to report that they or another member of their household had lost income since the pandemic struck. 46% of lower-wage workers surveyed said they had trouble paying bills since March, compared to 19% of middle-income and 5% of upper income earners.

And although the coronavirus does not see gender or sexual orientation, higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation experienced by LGBTQ+ people has been documented for years.

The system was ‘never built’

Minnesota has made an effort to respond to the rising need. In October, Walz announced that $3 million in federal CARES Act dollars would be allocated to boosting mental health services for children and families through the pandemic.

“Too many families suffered from mental health crises without knowing where to turn even before COVID-19,” Walz said at the time.

Abderholden said even before the pandemic, mental health services have been underfunded, subject to low Medicare and Medicare reimbursement rates and not enough investment. Providers and advocates have been trying to build resources for 40 years she said, but “without funding, it’s hard.”

“Our mental health system isn’t broken, she said. “It was never built.”

As hospitals fill with coronavirus patients needing acute medical care and health care workers are pushed to the brink, Abderholden said the current focus is on those on the frontline of the pandemic — and rightfully so. But once that battle is won, she said she hopes the powers-that-be will take a hard look at how mental health care can be expanded.

“You have a situation where more people than ever are needing help,” she said. “We don’t really have the capacity. We didn’t have the capacity to serve the people before. (...) Well, what are we going to do now?”

In the immediate future, Abderholden said she hopes to see governments make grant money available to help treat the current need.

But even after the coronavirus vaccine is widely available and things begin to resemble normalcy again, Abderholden said she is concerned about the long-term impact this past year could have on Americans’ minds. The pain won’t go away overnight.

When people are in the midst of crisis — or in this case, a long-term state of crisis — Abderholden said people have a tendency to buckle down just to get through it. Then after the fact, they are exhausted and think, “How did I ever do that?”

“Because everyone has just tried to really push forward for a very long period of time, I think we’re just going to see a lot of people frankly just kind of fall apart when this is over,” she said.

A silver lining

Bergsrud said the first barrier for people to get the help they need is the stigma that surrounds mental health. It’s often the people in need who need to make the first move and reach out for help.

Thanks to a “Scandanavian upbringing,” she said that might be even harder for upper Midwesterners.

“It’s always been a stigma problem, and so people don’t want to say it out loud,” she said. “Therefore, they hold it inside until either there’s a breaking point or somebody actually reaches out (to them) and says, ‘Come on we’re going to help you.”

If there is a silver lining to the pandemic, Abderholden said she thinks there will be more awareness of and empathy toward mental health needs on the other side of the pandemic because “there are few people through all of this who have felt nothing.”

“I think most people have felt days when they were incredibly anxious about the future and about what was going on in their lives,” she said. “There were days when people were depressed. I think there were days when people drank too much.”

And she said she thinks people are talking about it more, lessening the stigma. Even on social media, she sees friends posting frankly about their needs and struggles right now.

If you need help

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for English and 1-888-628-9454 for Spanish.

You can also chat with a counselor online.

If you are experiencing intimate partner or domestic violence, consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text LOVEIS to 22522.

If you need help accessing mental health or substance use care or resources, consider calling the SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

If you are in an emergency, call 911.

This story is part of a 13-day series that looks at all the ways 2020 has changed us. From now until 2021, expect stories on workplace and education, sports, economics, politics and everything in between. Contact Sarah Mearhoff at smearhoff@forumcomm.com or 610-790-4992.

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COVID-19 pandemic revealed problems and pushed lasting changes in the food chain

Forum News Service — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 13:00:00 GMT

FARGO — As the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., restaurants and bars closed or were limited to takeout and delivery. Offices closed, keeping workers home and changing normal lunch stops. ��s closed, changing where students ate breakfast and lunch. Millions lost jobs and found themselves with less income to purchase food.

Those changes meant more people in grocery stores and fewer in restaurants. It meant reduced quantities of some items on grocery store shelves and higher prices for others. And it meant big changes for those who raise, process and serve food, as well as those who consume it.

"You see people lining up for donations at food banks. You see empty grocery store shelves. At the same time, you see farmers who are dumping milk, plowing under fields of onions and squash, and most recently reports of having to euthanize hogs" — the result of "mismatches in our food supply chain," said Darci Vetter, former chief agricultural negotiator with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, during a May 12 webinar on "Global Trade: A Pandemic Primer" hosted by the National Press Foundation.

Those “mismatches” revealed problems in the nation’s food chain but also pushed changes that may last long after the pandemic ends.

Where we eat

The supply chain that gets farm products to end consumers couldn’t change fast enough to account for the disruption when the pandemic hit.

So while grocery stores limited purchases of milk, some dairy farmers were dumping milk bound for foodservice destinations. Milk prices improved later, in part on the strength of cheese, a staple for people cooking at home.

The “shell” egg market saw a brief uptick when people began cooking more at home, but the “breaking” or “liquid” market dried up. As “liquid” eggs were diverted into the shell market, the price of eggs tanked. Producers had to decrease production or move flocks to slaughter faster.

In some places, produce was plowed under as it didn’t pay to harvest it, even as people lined up at food banks. But for some products, demand was high. Kurt Haarmann, senior vice president of Columbia Grain International, based in Portland, Ore., in June said pasta and other “shelf-stable” staples like pulse crops were “flying off the grocery shelves.”

Rural grocery stores became even more important as people tried to stay closer to home. And the grocery industry faced challenges from suppliers. Part of the issue remains that more people are buying groceries, while the other part is that processing plants have contended at times with keeping employees free of the virus.

“Some categories are still constrained. We continue to talk with our suppliers about how to keep our shelves stocked,” said Denise Osterhues, senior director of Corporate Affairs for The Kroger Co., during a session of the Sustainable Agriculture Summit, held virtually in November.

Restaurants, and the people who work in them, still have struggled. According to the National Restaurant Association, most states added restaurant jobs in October but the vast majority still lagged behind pre-pandemic employment levels.

One of the hardest hit areas has been the District of Columbia, which the National Restaurant Association reported remained 31% below pre-pandemic staffing levels in October. North Dakota Farmers Union’s Farmers Restaurant Group owns several restaurants in the D.C. area. Mark Watne, president of North Dakota Farmers Union, said the popular chain is doing about 55% of pre-pandemic business. Maintaining even that amount of business took innovation.

“We did really three things. So one is, we've got the restaurants open with outside dining following the guidelines of the location ... which typically is about a 50% occupancy rate, then we obviously did the curbside pickup and the delivery systems. That's been going fairly well,” he said. “The last thing that we're really focusing on is that we sell groceries from products that come from the same suppliers . . . that supply our restaurants.”

Even with “a really huge week” at Thanksgiving and downsizing staff, Watne said the chain is just breaking even.

The meat issue

Perhaps no segment of the ag and food industries suffered as much as the livestock industry, which faced food chain disruptions and coronavirus outbreaks in packing plants.

By mid-March, prices for livestock plummeted on concerns about demand from restaurants and events, though demand at grocery stores led to empty shelves. A tandem fear that COVID-19 would cause slowdowns or shutdowns at packing plants increased the price for meat.

As the disparity between live cattle prices and meat prices grew, cattle producers called for efforts to address record profits made by packers. The COVID-19 pandemic was the second event in less than a year that called attention to the situation, the first being an August 2019 fire at a packing plant.

Hog producers faced the reality of packing plant slowdowns and closures, which meant they had nowhere to go with market-ready hogs. The Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., was an early hotspot for the virus in the U.S. As that plant and others struggled with employee health, pigs had to be euthanized and composted.

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Packing plants slowly opened back up and returned to work, and by October, Greg Ibach, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, told the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association convention that packing plant employees had “better protection when they’re at work … than they do when they walk out of the plant.”

To help farmers and ranchers dealing with low prices due to supply chain issues, the government created the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which paid out billions of dollars to producers in “CFAP1” and “CFAP2” to compensate for market losses. Also established was a Farmers to Families Food Box program, which was focused on both creating demand for food businesses hit by the pandemic and on providing food for those dealing with food insecurity.

The food supply chain problems had one interesting effect: People looked for local sources of meat and other foods. Small meat processing facilities took on more work. States have looked to help people start or expand processing plants.

In North Dakota, the Department of Health reported that as of Dec. 11, 37 people had obtained retail licenses to sell frozen, prepackaged, USDA or North Dakota inspected meat products to end consumers in the state — up from just 14 at the end of 2019.

Lacey Block of Lake City, S.D., started her Ranchers Rebellion meat business shortly before the pandemic began, and she drew long lines of consumers looking for meat in May. Though Block continues to fill retail freezers and provide restaurants with beef, the pace is less frenzied now.

After COVID issues were solved for packing plants, many consumers — predictably — returned to the big box stores as prices returned to pre-COVID levels.

The future of food

By mid-December, the first vaccines to prevent COVID-19 were administered in the U.S. That brought hope that some level of normalcy would return to the world and to food systems.

The livestock industry wants to see changes that will prevent market disparities. Multiple pieces of legislation have been proposed in Congress. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced legislation on a rule that would mandate packers buy at least 50% of their supply on the open market. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., has introduced the PRICE Act, which promotes more small packers and creates a cattle contract library to increase transparency. The Department of Justice continues to look into complaints that packers have too much control in the industry.

The restaurant industry expects a strong return to business as virus levels decrease. Watne suspects people will be eager to return to restaurants.

And while some things might go back to “normal,” some pandemic changes might stick around. For Farmers Restaurant Group, the pandemic provided a push to try new things. Curbside and delivery options have been popular, as have selling things like chocolate and coffee.

“We've always talked about kind of a retail outlet. We never developed it because we were very fortunate our restaurants are so busy. We didn't have room in our kitchens to do it, but this will come in and this probably put us down the road further as another outlet for our product,” Watne said. “There's going to be a great opportunity. And if you do it right, you're going to be a winner out of this in the long term. You just got to go through the pain for a while.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., sees more permanent flexibility for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and school lunches, to ensure people grappling with food insecurity can access healthy meals.

On a recent webinar on agri-food resiliency during the Virtual 2020 Minnesota Ag and Food Summit, panelists discussed how quickly they had made adjustments to take care of their customers.

"There's a lot of debate over what we're going to learn from COVID, what's its lasting impact," said Doug Baker, CEO of Ecolab. "Personally, I think, mostly what it will do is accelerate trends that were already in place. Trends around remote capability, trends around digitization of industrial practices."

Hoeven agrees. He sees more possibilities and suspects North Dakota could lead the way with things like unmanned aviation for deliveries.

“Pretty soon you're going to be able to order something and drones are going to deliver it to your doorstep,” he said. “And that's real. That's coming.”

Home sales, construction thriving despite chaos of 2020

David Olson — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 15:00:00 GMT

FARGO — The shadow of COVID-19 will mark 2020 as a year of trial and misery for many, but in some corners of the economy things weren't all bad.

In fact, the Upper Midwest region's housing market is thriving.

After a slow start in early 2020, sales of single-family homes in the Fargo-Moorhead area took off, eclipsing last year's numbers. The same has been true for construction of single-family homes.

Through the first 11 months of this year, about 4,358 homes were sold in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area, outpacing the approximately 3,737 sold in 2019 during the same time period, according to Nick Olson, president of FM Realtors and broker/owner at Coldwell Banker/Element Realty.

In addition, Olson said the average sale price of homes in the area went from about $244,000 in 2019 to a current average price of about $257,000.

"It's a substantial increase," Olson said, acknowledging that gains in home sales and home value seem to make little sense given the world pandemic and its economic impacts.

"I scratch my head and wonder why this is happening," Olson said, adding that he and others who are in the business of selling homes remain thankful, nonetheless.

Olson said no single reason likely accounts for the strong housing market, but historically low interest rates clearly play a big part.

With rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage around 3% or lower, Olson said buying a home makes sense for many.

"I've sold houses to people who are spending $1,400 a month in rent; they get into a house and their house payments is $1,100, or whatever, and then they're building that equity," Olson said.

The housing market appears to be hot across the country, including in Minnesota and South Dakota.

According to Minnesota Realtors, home sales in Minnesota began to take off in July, similar to the way they do in the spring in a more normal year.

Year to date, sales of single-family homes are up about 7% across Minnesota, while the month of November saw a nearly 16% increase in home sales in the state compared to November 2019, according to Minnesota Realtors.

The picture in October was even more impressive, as sales were up nearly 30% from October 2019.

"In 2020, fall is the new spring in terms of market activity," said Chris Galler, CEO of Minnesota Realtors.

In October, the median home price in Minnesota reached $285,000, up 14% from a year ago and the highest median home price since records have been kept in Minnesota, according to Galler.

The housing market in South Dakota is very similar to what North Dakota and Minnesota are experiencing, according to Brandon Martens, president-elect of South Dakota Realtors.

Martens said in the Sioux Falls market, year-to-date sales of existing homes are up about 10.6% from what they were a year ago.

He added that while demand for homes is high, the inventory is low.

"Some of our struggle locally is lack of inventory, or our sales would be higher," Martens said.

Home offices back in style

Darrick Guthmiller, president of the Home Builders Association of Fargo-Moorhead, said interest rates are a major driver of the housing market locally and across the country, but they're not the only one.

Guthmiller said the fact many people now work from home due to the pandemic is another major factor, as people are wondering: "If this is the way things are going to be, maybe we need to make a move."

Guthmiller, who is also president of Kochmann Brothers Homes, a Fargo house builder, said home gyms and offices are becoming increasingly popular features in new houses. "A number of years ago, people had big computers so people needed a big office. Then we got into smaller offices and then no offices," Guthmiller said.

"Now, we're putting an office back into pretty much all the homes. It's definitely a trend," Guthmiller said.

Building permit numbers for the Fargo metro area illustrate the growth in new home starts in 2020 compared to 2019.

Permits for single-family homes numbered 828 from January through September of this year, a 37% increase over the 603 permits issued during the same period in 2019, according to numbers from the Home Builders Association.

Guthmiller said building permit numbers for new homes in the metro area are slightly above the five-year average, a remarkable situation, he said, given the pandemic.

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While it's unknown how long favorable interest rates will hang around, Guthmiller said buyer confidence could remain high for some time, even if interest rates rise.

One potential reason: when the pandemic eventually wanes things like greater employment stability could buoy consumer confidence and spending.

"Once we're through this, remodeling is probably going to take off, too," Guthmiller said.

Olson agreed, adding that when it comes to remodeling, a lot is happening already.

He said that insight comes from a relative of his who manages a hardware store in Moorhead who tells him business is up substantially.

"People are investing back into their houses, repairing things, or getting it (their home) ready to sell," Olson said, adding that from what he hears real estate agents nationwide are seeing brisk business.

"You're seeing a lot of everything," he said.

First-time buyers face challenge

The North Dakota Housing Finance Agency recently released a study titled, “The Current State of Housing in North Dakota,” which explores the affordability of the state’s single and multifamily housing, the impacts of COVID-19, and housing challenges faced by vulnerable populations in 2020.

The study notes that 60% of North Dakotans own their own home and in recent years homeowners have benefited from above-average increases in home value.

While that's good for those who already own homes, it's a different story for those looking to join the club, according to NDHFA Executive Director Dave Flohr.

"More than half of existing homes on the market in North Dakota had a sale price above $300,000 in September and the cost of construction materials, labor, land and utilities restricts the ability to list a home for less than $250,000, making it difficult for new households, particularly first time buyers, to enter the market," Flohr said.

According to the NDHFA study, a home is affordable when 30% or less of a household’s earned income is spent on housing. Households that put more than 30% of income towards housing are considered to be cost burdened.

An American Community Survey estimated that 14% of North Dakota homeowners spent more than 30% of their income for housing in 2018, while about 39% of renters are thought to have spent 30% or more of their income on housing, according to the NDHFA study.

A large segment of North Dakota’s renters work in accommodations and food services industries, the state’s lowest wage occupations, according to Flohr, who added minimum wage households must work 89 hours a week to rent an affordable apartment.

"We know that having a place to call home can be transformative for a household and there are hard to house individuals in our state who face challenges beyond affordability that keeps them from finding a home,” Flohr said.

READ: THE 202O PROJECT, a 13-day series that looks at all the ways 2020 has changed us.

"COVID-19 has exacerbated the housing issues faced by low-income households and vulnerable populations," he added.

Those vulnerable populations include women and children at risk for domestic violence, said Erin Prochnow, CEO of YWCA Cass Clay, which operates the largest shelter in North Dakota/Northwest Minnesota serving women and children who live in homes where their safety is tenuous.

"During this time of pandemic, our commitment to those facing violence and homelessness has remained steadfast, but aside from that I think it's safe to say nothing is the same," Prochnow said adding that COVID-19 has added an extra layer of stress for those living in abusive situations.

"What we're hearing anecdotally from women is that it's difficult to leave in a pandemic when your abuser is home all the time; secondarily they're fearful of coming into a communal living environment, such as a shelter setting, because they want to protect their children and themselves from the coronavirus," Prochnow said.

She said one statistic that reflects those concerns is the percentage of women who phone the YWCA's Fargo shelter to reserve a spot, but then aren't able to arrive.

In June, that number was 40%, according to Prochnow.

"Obviously, this is distressing to our team," she added.

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Confronting criticism, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum reflects on pivotal pandemic decisions

Adam Willis — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 05:00:00 GMT

BISMARCK — When COVID-19 took hold in the United States, it looked like Gov. Doug Burgum's moment. The former Microsoft executive, who ran for governor championing a CEO's approach, seemed to have a challenge perfectly suited to his data-first style.

But it soon became clear that Burgum was in what one friend, Fargo City Commissioner John Strand, called "something akin to a pickle."

Burgum, known for his go-his-own-way leadership, proved prescient early on, stressing in the confusing first days of March that the new virus was likely to reach North Dakota. As it took hold on the coasts, he invested heavily in testing, building a statewide apparatus that has consistently ranked among the largest of any state.

But as the world learned more about COVID-19, pandemic governance became thornier. In a deeply Trump-friendly state (in November, the president drew his second-largest margin of victory in North Dakota), a dismissive tone set by the White House laid the groundwork for the slow, reluctant adoption of masks. North Dakota led the country in new per capita cases and deaths for close to two months this fall while Burgum routinely rejected calls for a statewide mask mandate or other direct interventions.

"You can’t walk into someone’s house and wrestle a mask on them. It isn’t going to happen," Burgum said in mid-October, when there were about 4,200 confirmed active cases in North Dakota. By the time he flipped, installing a mask mandate and business restrictions a month later, cases had soared over 10,000.

Like Strand, other Burgum supporters insist the governor was in a difficult position: caught between an urgent need for public compliance and what he diagnosed as North Dakota’s preference for the "light touch" of government — a trait that has led many residents to shun mask guidelines this year.

On one side of the governor, a vocal faction — including some elected officials — flouted pandemic precautions and decried government overreach. On the other, national media outlets turned their sights on a worst-in-class outbreak in North Dakota and local doctors and medical associations urged the governor to install a mask mandate.

"It was really the national election that was the factor," the governor told Forum News Service in an interview earlier this month. Burgum, who was elected to a second term in November, doesn’t point any fingers at President Donald Trump, but he’s quick to name the challenges of navigating pandemic politics. "Everything about pandemic response, whether it was masking or education mediums or the vaccine — every single aspect of that became politically divisive," he said.

But even with national politics setting the terms, Burgum rejected notions that they had any bearing on his response. Instead, he insisted that he was guided by data and data alone.

"We said on Day 1 that we were going to make decisions based on data, not on ideology," Burgum said. While the rest of the country descended into yet another partisan battle, the governor argued that a commitment to the numbers buoyed North Dakota above the political fray. "I think we were kind of immune to that," he said.

But critics of the state's response don't buy it. Some argued that the governor fell short of his data-centric aspirations this year, allowing politics to direct his decisions instead.

“All I can think of is that the voices on the right got louder,” said Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat who served as North Dakota’s congressman for 18 years. Pomeroy argued that Burgum was “cowed” by a vocal minority and struggled to break step from the Trump-aligned response championed by Gov. Kristi Noem in South Dakota.

“He became frozen in place,” Pomeroy said. “He let Kristi Noem define what Republicans do in the Great Plains instead of deciding for himself based on science and medicine.”

'Government doesn’t function like Microsoft'

As other states remained under lockdown this spring, Burgum looked to mitigate partisanship over masks. One emotional plea, from a news conference in late May, went viral around the country. Cautioning against an emerging "senseless dividing line," Burgum called on the state to embrace empathy.

"I would really love to see in North Dakota, if we could just skip this thing that other parts of the nation are going through," he said before choking back tears. “If someone is wearing a mask, they’re not doing it to represent what political party they’re in or what candidates they support. They might be doing it because they have a 5-year-old child who’s been going through cancer treatments. They might have vulnerable adults in their family who currently have COVID, and they’re fighting.”

On national news networks, the message was received as a beacon of nonpartisan hope. At the same time, Burgum’s Big Tech pedigree lent comfort to some on the other side of the aisle.

"I thought, 'Our governor is tied into some of the best thinking in the tech world about how we’re going to respond,'" Pomeroy recalled of the pandemic's early days. "And then it just completely stalled out. As the country learned more, North Dakota didn’t move any further."

By the time an outbreak began surging in North Dakota in the late summer and fall, the partisan lines that Burgum had decried in May were firmly entrenched. Masks, social distancing — the pandemic itself — had become political totems, in North Dakota as much as anywhere else.

But when the governor looked back on the worst stretches of the pandemic, he expressed frustration at the shift in the national tone on North Dakota's response, to what he saw as politically motivated targeting of a red state.

"There was a national narrative that I think was trying to support a national political position," Burgum said. He argued that observers around the country cherry-picked data to make out Trump-friendly states such as North Dakota as failed responders, ignoring the massive testing infrastructure deployed by his health department and its influence on the state's case numbers. "I think that was a clear strategy," he said.

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Drinking from a firehose: The media and politics in 2020

A robust testing effort does not explain how North Dakota became the national leader in per capita deaths for nearly two months, or why the state's hospital system was balanced on its breaking point. But Burgum noted that frequent testing in nursing homes may have inflated North Dakota's count of recorded COVID-19 deaths relative to states with less diligent testing. (South Dakota, for instance, had administered a quarter the number of per capita tests as North Dakota to date.) When the pandemic is through, Burgum argued, "it is going to be very difficult to do state-versus-state comparisons on death data" without a full picture of who was being tested.

But fairly or not, North Dakota held its claim to these superlatives for much of the fall, while pressure built on the local and national level for the governor to intervene.

Strand said he and his old college friend (the two shared a ticket for elected office at North Dakota State University, with Burgum winning student body president and Strand serving as his vice president) have exchanged messages over the course of the pandemic. The Fargo city commissioner was one of North Dakota’s earliest proponents of mask mandates, advocating for them at the local level as far back as July, and he said that he prevailed, in messages and an extensive phone call, on his old NDSU running mate to be open to instituting a statewide mandate.

Still, Strand said he expected the governor would have to balance the input against competing concerns. He recognized that his opinion was just one point in a much larger dataset. "Doug does not shoot from the hip," he said, "Doug is obsessed. He will analyze until he’s blue in the face."

But as COVID-19 cases took an upward turn in the late summer, Burgum resisted the guidance of medical advisers. The governor struggled to hold down medical experts at the top of his Department of Health: three chief health officers left their posts abruptly during the pandemic, and the current interim occupant has no medical training. And two top doctors frequently cited as primary advisers by the Burgum administration told Forum News Service that during the fall outbreak they were not consulted on plans for a mask mandate or other direct interventions until the last week of October.

While doctors and some personal friends lobbied the governor for a mask mandate, constituent opposition took on teeth in the state's conservative Legislature. Burgum has nursed a rocky relationship with lawmakers since his initial campaign, and his CEO style and a few political feuds may have reopened old wounds in the pandemic. House Majority Leader Chet Pollert predicted a legislative response to the string of executive orders this year, including measures to curtail those powers in the upcoming session.

Former House Majority Leader Al Carlson, who lost reelection two years into Burgum's first term, said he believes the governor's unilateral actions during the pandemic added strain to a relationship already in need of repair. "He needs to have a greater appreciation of the separation of powers," Carlson said. "Government doesn’t function like Microsoft."

Pomeroy argued that Burgum's hands were never really tied from issuing a mask mandate. He said Burgum allowed his own reading of the political climate to overshadow his own expertise, a mistake that he said resulted in unnecessary deaths.

"I think he’s probably the smartest governor we've had in 50 years," the former congressman said. "But I’m telling you right now, with this COVID thing, he has a record of failure unmatched in my lifetime in state leadership."

'Critics in the stands'

When the pandemic ends, mid-November will undoubtedly mark a pivotal moment in the North Dakota story. On the night of Nov. 13, 10 days after his own reelection and Trump's defeat, Burgum reversed on months of rejecting a statewide mask mandate.

Active cases peaked the same day at 10,295. Four days after that, the positivity rate crested at 15.7%. Since then, both metrics have dropped as quickly as they climbed. Virus hospitalizations have plummeted by more than 200 people.

"I suppose, practically speaking, we needed to all get past the election. And then realities change," Strand said. The Fargo city commissioner said he believes Burgum's response will be measured kindly in the history books, and he commended the governor for having the courage and backbone to modify his response. "I was counting on that. And he did. And thank goodness he did. It's having a profoundly quantifiable effect," he said.

But Burgum pushed against suggestions that the statewide mask mandate has been the primary driver of North Dakota's turnaround. He emphasizes a convergence of factors, including the patchwork of local mask directives that predated the statewide mandate, bar restrictions and a steadily growing population of residents with personal ties to the virus. And he maintains that he approved direct action at just the right time to skirt "a red line" of depleting hospital beds.

“It’s just impossible to have even a credible discussion or argument about one single action and whether or not that would have led to different outcomes,” he argued. “They’re picking one thing — a statewide mask mandate — among a thousand variables and then trying to speculate .... I don’t find it useful or creative or even interesting.”

The governor called it "odd" and "untimely" that anyone should want to assess the state's performance when the pandemic is still ongoing. Some of the sources for this story, he suggested, are "critics in the stands" who don't have credibility on the high stakes decisions that fall to his office. And Burgum argued that observers' focus on the mandate confuses correlation and causation. "It’s ridiculous, and I think at some level, the idea that either we were 'frozen in place' or making political decisions, that’s offensive to all the front line people that are battling to save lives," he said.

And while Burgum isn’t yet keen to reflect back on the last nine months, he argued that he and his team always made the best possible decisions on the information they had at the time. "Could you always use better information, better data? Of course," he said.

For one former occupant of Burgum’s office, though, the governor's marriage to the data may have been his vulnerability when it came to the charged decision point on the mask mandate.

The virus, the riots, the election: The unforgettable 2020

Former Gov. Ed Schafer, who cited his own tenure during the 1997 Red River Valley flood as a vetting in crisis management, said an overload of new and changing information about COVID-19 and public behavior may have left a data-driven operator such as Burgum unclear on the right move. "Data can always paralyze you," Schafer said.

In the rising din of the general election, Schafer noted that he thinks Burgum didn't hear the guidance of doctors and his medical advisers loudly enough. And whether the mask mandate has been a difference-maker or not, for Schafer, that call needed to be more gut than calculation.

"That’s one of the things that you learn when you're sitting in the governor's chair," Schafer said. "Sometimes, you have to make decisions based on your heart."

This story is part of a 13-day series that looks at all the ways 2020 has changed us. From now until 2021, expect stories on workplace and education, sports, economics, politics and everything in between. Readers can reach Forum News Service reporter Adam Willis, a Report for America corps member, at awillis@forumcomm.com .

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Families in 2020: 'What we are able to give, has to be enough'

Carolyn Lange — Fri, 25 Dec 2020 19:00:00 GMT

NEW LONDON, Minn. — On a typical day — not that there is one anymore since the coronavirus pandemic upended her already busy life — Heather Westberg King attempts a magic act of being in two places at the same time.

After the 45-year-old mother of three scrambles to prevent a child’s meltdown during a distance learning crisis, she runs across her yard in New London, Minn., to her parents’ house – built this year so King could keep a close eye on their failing health after COVID elevated health concerns even more.

She grabs the family’s new puppy, George, which her mother, Linda Westberg, simply adores, especially now that Alzheimer’s is seeping into her life.

With kids, dog and parents in tow, King gradually gets everyone into the car to take her dad, Mike, to the doctor for a three-times-a-week appointment in Willmar. She takes him to Mayo Clinic in Rochester every other week for two days.

“Sound like chaos?” King asks.

It’s a rhetorical question.

But the chaos is overtaken by something more powerful: love and peace of mind.

Until this fall, King’s parents lived in the country. Even though it took King only about 15 minutes to drive there, it was too long and too far when frequent emergencies arose with her parents while she was also needed by her kids.

It was “such a relief and peace of mind” after her parents moved next door at the end of October, she said. Now it takes about 15 seconds to go from her kids in her kitchen to her parents in their kitchen.

But having her fingers on the pulse of her 70-year-old mom and 72-year-old dad and her 15-,13- and 9-year-old kids is exhausting.

Like many American women faced with new layers of full-time COVID-related family challenges who realize there are actually only 24 hours in a day, King quit her job this summer.

She’s not alone. The U.S. Labor Department says women are leaving the workforce at four times the rate of men in 2020. In September alone 865,000 women left their jobs compared to 216,000 men.

King said her dad was “mortified” that she quit her job to take care of them and he feels guilty for adding stress to his daughter. Westberg thought he’d be the one taking care of his wife of 50 years as her Alzheimer’s progressed. That was until he contracted graft vs. host disease after getting a successful stem cell transplant to fight leukemia. It’s now difficult for him to walk and impossible for him to drive.

“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” said Westberg, giving his daughter a squeeze.

Her dad hadn’t been in the habit of asking for and accepting help, said King, but there was no choice. The two households now share meals together, play games, put puzzles together and talk about things “that draw us closer together” because they are together every day, said King, calling it “an honor” to care for her parents.

But it’s not all paradise. King, who got married in May on the Kandiyohi County courthouse lawn after COVID got in the way of other plans, has her own health issues. And her kids are, quite frankly, sick of each other and missing school and their friends.

King said people like her who are in the “sandwich generation” can’t beat themselves up when they can’t be everything to everyone.

GALLERY: Westberg family

“What we are able to give, has to be enough,” she said.

She knows she can’t do it by herself and has learned to ask for socially-distanced help from friends and family during the pandemic.

“I can’t do it all and do it well, with taking care of them, my kids, husband and life,” she said. “This whole world is crashing down on me.”

King said she’s learned not to worry about what she can’t control.

“We are all so hard on ourselves about what we can give to our family,” she said. “This last year has been a lesson that it’s enough just to be loving.”

Missing the hugs

Living next door to her aging mother isn’t an option for Tami Good.

She drives from her home in West Fargo, N.D., to visit her mom 100 miles away at the Ave Maria Village nursing home in Jamestown, N.D., several times a month. Lately it’s a short visit on opposite sides of a glass door.

Good made the drive Nov. 24, when her mother, Darlene Windingland, turned 80.

“Goodbye, Mama,” Good said, before turning back to the phone for an interview.

Doing video chats with her mom isn’t feasible so Good makes the drive “for the five minutes just to see her through the doorway,” she said. “Me and my mom are really close.”

With face-to-face visits off-limits at nearly all nursing homes, families are finding creative ways to stay connected, said Tim Burchill, CEO of Ave Maria Village.

Phone calls, video chats and staff-led activities help, but not being able to touch and talk with family in person has been difficult.

Good said her mother is “very huggy” and will hold people in a “death grip” given the chance.

Not being able to hug her mother or hold her hand is “worse than you can imagine,” said Good. “It’s rough.”

Most of the residents understand they can’t see people they love because of the coronavirus and have adapted better than he expected, but Burchill said some are “melancholy” and some have “given up” because of loneliness.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

Care packages, decorations and flowers sent to residents are “real day-brighteners,” said Burchill. “Those little things mean so much.”

Since 2008, Burchill has strapped on his accordion every other Friday afternoon to lead a singalong and tell corny jokes during “happy hour” with Ave Maria residents while they drInk a glass of beer or wine or whiskey sour in the fellowship hall. He hasn’t been able to hold court since COVID prohibited group gatherings.

He misses that connection of sharing music and humor with the residents and they miss the light-hearted fun. Burchill has wandered the halls a few times to play accordion and sing to residents, but it’s not the same. Happy hour will eventually return when COVID goes away, he said.

As the music coordinator for Carris Health Rice Hospice in Willmar, Donna Jo Kopitzke said music is a powerful force to create and revive memories.

“Musical memories are deeply rooted memories,” she said. Sharing a favorite song with someone “can be so helpful and so healing.”

MORE FROM THE 2020 PROJECT:

'Don’t let the pandemic steal your joy': In 2020, church communities dove deeper into faith
COVID-19 hits the sports world on the field, and in the wallet
Has the education world learned from the pandemic?

Before COVID, Kopitzke would play guitar and sing songs while sitting next to people in hospice, and their families who were preparing to say goodbye to loved ones.

During COVID, Kopitzke sang while wearing a mask and goggles, sang while doing outdoor and window visits and sang during video visits before retiring Dec. 23 to focus on music ministry with her husband, a Lutheran pastor.

Kopitzke encourages families to do what it takes to bring music to each other, especially at Christmas, even if it’s listening to a song together on the phone.

“Making those musical connections and memories are still so powerful,” she said. “You have to be really creative now to do whatever you can.”

Connecting the tribal family

With activity centers closed down because of COVID, maintaining community connections among members of the tight-knit Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe — where everyone is considered family whether they’re related or not — has been challenging.

But Courtney Clark, deputy director of emergency management for the tribe, said a combination of grants, partnerships with Internet providers and old-fashioned hard work where everyone looks out for each other, has helped tribal members receive vital information about COVID and news about life happening in their community.

Cell coverage and Internet service is fairly good on the Lake Traverse Reservation, which includes five counties in South Dakota and two counties in North Dakota. But Clark, who lives in Waubay, S.D., said having technology available doesn’t mean people are automatically connected.

After the South Dakota Department of Health had difficulty getting in touch with people who tested positive for COVID, it was revealed that some didn’t have minutes left on their cell phones or didn’t even have a phone. The tribe purchased 10 phones that are used by COVID-positive individuals during crucial contact times. The phones are then sanitized and handed off to others to use.

Reading local newspapers, tribal newsletters and listening to the radio is more popular than social media among elders who don’t have the Internet or aren’t comfortable using it, Clark said.

Tribal health leaders use those traditional avenues to keep the community connected and educated about COVID, including advice about limiting travel and being careful during Christmas.

Clark and her husband, who is a tribal policeman, and their 6-year-old son have kept mostly to themselves during the pandemic. Her husband stays connected to his sister, who lives about 20 miles away, by playing online games together. Clark said she talks every day to her mother, who lives in Washington, D.C. Sometimes they watch the same movie at the same time just to share something in common.

Those conversations and connections became even more dear after the death this year of Clark’s brother and grandmother on the East Coast.

“It’s changed my outlook on the vulnerability of life,” she said.

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'Don’t let the pandemic steal your joy': In 2020, church communities dove deeper into faith

Ann Bailey — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:00:00 GMT

PISEK, N.D. — “Perfect love drives out fear.”

It is a Bible verse from the first chapter of John that The Rev. Jason Lefor keeps close to heart for himself and his parishioners since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

“One of the petitions I have is, ‘Father, bring us to that perfect love to cast out fear,’” Lefor said. He includes that prayer in the petitions during the Prayer of the Faithful at each Saturday night vigil and Sunday Mass.

“You’re either going to take the principles of fear, and that’s going to guide you — or you live the principle of faith, which is that God the Father is behind all things and guides us through,” said Lefor, who leads the rural North Dakota parishes of St. Nepomucene in Pisek, St. Joseph in Lankin and Sts. Peter and Paul in Bechyne.

“Faith is the perfect response to fear. Faith is more important now than ever,” he said. “It doesn't mean you don’t get exhausted, but that your identity is secure.”

Faith communities faced a unique struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: Their group gatherings were discouraged by health officials, if not outright limited by state governments. They had to maintain a sense of congregation while protecting their most vulnerable members. They had to become adept at modern technology to find news ways of staying in communication.

And they had to maintain faith during a stressful, devastating pandemic.

For those such as Joe Miller, a member of St. John Nepomucene, hearing words of comfort at Sunday Mass and receiving the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, provide a source of strength. Surrounded by statues of saints and angels amid a shared faith community makes Miller feel part of something bigger.

“It’s all one unified community,” he said of the chorus of gathered voices.

When churches were closed during the spring, that longing to be at Mass became greater, according to Miller.

“When we weren’t in the church for a period of time, it was kind of an empty feeling,” he said.

Hallock, Minn., farmers Justin and Donna Dagen, who are members of the Evangelical Free Church of America, have been striving to bolster their faith by maintaining community, daily devotions and finding opportunities to help others who are struggling as a result of the pandemic.

“We still will have hard times, but Jesus is with us. He will never leave us,” said Donna Dagen, who takes comfort from Proverbs 1:33: “Whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

“That’s a good promise, right there,” she said.

One of the ways the Dagens practice their faith is to attend worship services at Resurrection Community Church in Karlstad, Minn. During the early months of the pandemic, that meant watching services that were streamed online, then “gathering” virtually for fellowship time.

“Even during the video thing, we did have coffee afterward. We Zoomed, so there would be a good number of us having coffee afterward,” Justin Dagen said.

The desire for community worship was why he and his wife were eager for the church to re-open, and they started attending services in person as soon as it did in June.

“Since then, it's been largely a normal worship time for us,” Justin Dagen said. “What has changed is that we have, maybe, only half of the people.”

That means about 25 people who attended services before the pandemic are choosing to stay home, he said.

The Dagens have reached out to the people who have been unable to attend services during the COVID-19 outbreak.

“I think there's a lot of ways to love our neighbor. For us, just making little telephone calls, just call people and ask them how they’re doing,” Justin Dagen said.

Praying for people is another way they strive to stay strong in their faith and to show compassion.

“We can pray for our friends, our neighbors, our family. We all need help,” Donna Dagen said.

The Dagens also look at the extra time that has resulted from Gov. Tim Walz's shutdown orders. That pause in typical daily activities has been an opportunity to strengthen their faith lives.

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“We all have extra time on our hands. We aren’t going to ball games four nights a week. It’s a different focus right now,” said Justin Dagen, who describes time spent praying together before meals and individually spending time in devotion and reflection throughout the day.

Focusing on faith has helped the Dagens to weather not only the pandemic, but also the political unrest that has gripped the United States this year. Without that faith, life would look bleak and it would be easy to fall into despair, according to the Dagens.

“When we look to Jesus, he brings that hope right back,” said Donna Dagen. This fall Justin Dagen, who is a farmer, delivered some of his crop to neighbors unable to go to the grocery store because they were ill or quarantined.

In addition, the Dagens, two to three times a week, babysit their granddaughter whose mother is a health care worker.

For Donna Dagen, caring for her granddaughter is a way she can lend a hand to her daughter and son-in-law during a time when she is unable to lead the church youth group or do other volunteer work.

“I feel like I am helping them,” she said.

In Aberdeen, S.D., Kristin Tobin is another who has discovered the pandemic has provided her an opportunity to put her faith into action as she helps care for COVID-19 patients.

“Making them feel more comfortable and cared for,” Tobin, a nurse at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital, said of her focus.

As a member of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Aberdeen, she said that her church has used technology to reach out to members.

“That was kind of our goal, to become more visual on Facebook and other social media. The pandemic forced us to do it quicker,” she said.

About 40 people attend services in the church on Sunday. The pandemic has changed some of the dynamics of the service, according to Tobin.

“We were kind of a huggy church. We had a greeting time in the morning at worship services. We would go pretty much from front to back and hug everybody and say ‘Hey, how are you doing?’” she said.

In the absence of the normal, she and other parishioners have looked at other ways to minister to the faithful, such as sending a card or by responding to them on Facebook.

Amid the upheaval and isolation that’s resulted from the pandemic, Tobin said she believes the faith of the Plymouth Congregational United Church members hasn’t been shaken.

“I think a lot of our people at our church do have a deep faith that will sustain them. They have been through hard things before,” Tobin said.

Lefor, pastor of the three rural Catholic churches in North Dakota,also has turned to technology as an avenue to deliver comfort. Each day, he spends 45 minutes sending personalized texts along with a prayer.

“My main go-to is the Memorare,” Lefor said, noting the prayer was special to St. Teresa of Calcutta.

Meanwhile, he also crafts personalized prayers, if that’s what he believes the person receiving his texts prefers.

Lefor’s goal as a priest during the coronavirus pandemic is the same as it was before: To help people trust implicitly in God.

“During ordinary times, we’re not consciously aware of the need we have for God's help. In this world, there will be tribulations. Are you going to be a faithful Christian during them? It’s my job to help people get to that point,” he said. “Don’t let the pandemic steal your joy. A pandemic is not greater than Christ.”

Walz stuck to his 'One Minnesota' message during a politically and socially fractured 2020

Dana Ferguson — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 16:00:00 GMT

ST. PAUL — A long, cold winter awaited Minnesota and the path forward was to hunker down and be patient, Gov. Tim Walz told the state in April.

At the time, 20 Minnesotans had perished from the illness and its complications, and weeks earlier Walz issued an order requiring residents to stay at home unless they were completing essential tasks.

"Long hours of darkness are ahead," Walz said during an April 5 address broadcast from the basement of the governor's residence. "It’s going to be a cold winter. How do we get through a cold winter? We get through it together, as one Minnesota."

In the weeks and months that followed, the governor issued dozens of orders changing the lives of Minnesotans at levels large and small in an effort to prepare the state for the "storm of epic proportions" that rolled in slowly then seemed to bear down with intensity this fall.

His decisions prevented Minnesota hospitals from becoming overrun and lessened the number of fatal cases, physicians, nurses and hospital leaders said. Statewide business groups, too, said that while the hospitality sector bore the brunt of the economic hit from the pandemic, workers and business owners understood their help was needed to limit the virus’ spread.

But Walz's "One Minnesota" message cracked under the pressure of an America more politically divided than ever.

The pandemic response became politicized in a way that it hasn't in other parts of the world, and defiance of lawmakers' mitigation measures morphed into a battle cry against the establishment. And as public health experts remind the public: Mitigation measures are only as strong as their weakest link.

Almost 400,000 Minnesotans have contracted the illness in the last nine months and nearly 5,000 have died from the virus and its complications. The pandemic has killed more Minnesotans to date than World War I and appears on pace to take more lives than World War II.

And the coronavirus, along with state mitigation measures, has pumped the brakes on the state's economy that was booming just months before.

It took a more than $2 billion bite out of the state's revenue compared to prior projections. More than 1 million workers have sought unemployment aid after widespread layoffs in the spring. Dozens of businesses have closed permanently with more at a crisis point following the latest round of restrictions earlier this month.

Walz, a former teacher and soldier, has said public health data has informed his course of action and that he’s tried to balance the economic and personal well-being of Minnesotans against the possible threats of sickness and death posed by COVID-19.

"Each and every one of those decisions is going to impact lives and I have to be responsible for that," Walz told Forum News Service during a Dec. 4 interview.

'Somebody had to be the responsible parent here'

Early on, the state modeled projections that showed the virus could kill 74,000 Minnesotans without mitigation measures and overrun the state’s 235 ICU beds by the end of April without intervention.

In hospitals, doctors and nurses were reusing dirty masks and gowns because there weren't enough.

While Minnesota’s neighboring states took more hands-off mitigation measures, Walz issued a stay-at-home order in April that lasted six weeks, mandated the wearing of face masks following U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance in July, and set in place "pauses" on various sectors of business and social gatherings last month.

The moves drew blowback from business owners, Republican legislators and fed-up Minnesotans but they helped Minnesota build up needed supplies to help those severely sickened by the disease fight it off, state health care groups said. The decisions also relieved pressure on hospitals that had been at or nearing capacity under the weight of the most recent surge in COVID-19 cases.

"If we hadn't been the responsible state among the five-state area and we had just done what everyone else did and didn't pay attention and then closed down, I can't even imagine the total collapse of the health care system," said Mary Turner, a nurse at North Memorial Hospital and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. "We had a duty to be the one. Somebody had to be the responsible parent here, the responsible adult here."

In Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, elected officials said they trusted their constituents to make choices that would limit the virus' spread. And South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem chastised the approach of Walz and others to issue mask mandates or stay-at-home orders.

"In our state, you won't find the restrictions that hold companies back in other places," Noem said in a July video ad aimed at luring Minnesota businesses to move to South Dakota.

Those more laissez-faire plans seemed to pan out in Minnesota's neighboring states late in the spring and over the summer. Daily case counts and fatalities from the virus were relatively low. And then COVID-19 seized, catapulting new daily case counts per capita in North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa to the top levels in the country this fall.

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Around Minnesota's borders, COVID-19 smoldered and it was just a matter of time before the heat seeped into the state, too.

“Here in Minnesota, certainly we’re not perfect in our response, we continue to try and learn," Walz said in the interview, "but the fact is six weeks ago we were 21st in infection rates while Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin were 1, 2, 3 and 5, and now we’re there with them.

"If your neighbor’s house is on fire, and they choose not to put it out, those flames lead to you and that’s what happened.”

New COVID-19 cases nearly doubled in Minnesota between October and early November. Case positivity rates jumped by almost threefold between early October and mid-November. And hospital capacity was stretched to a near breaking point, said Dr. Marilyn Peitso, president of the Minnesota Medical Association.

The state implemented another round of "pauses" to indoor businesses and social gatherings last month that bent the curve in new cases and hospital admissions came down.

“There were times when care was delayed in finding the right ICU, about finding the right hospital bed,” Peitso said, "but the preparations that the state of Minnesota has put in place have really, really served us well. Minnesotans should be proud of the science-informed procedures that have been in place in our state."

RELATED: Walz implores governors in North Dakota, South Dakota to take action against COVID-19
Emergency powers stir anger among opponents

Like governors around the country, Walz declared a peacetime emergency in March to combat COVID-19. The emergency allowed him to make decisions on the fly without legislative approval, which can take days or weeks to solidify.

But unlike his peers, the governor faced a divided Legislature and a provision of the state Constitution that gives lawmakers a chance to veto extensions of his expanded authority.

Senate GOP lawmakers, along with some Democrats and Independents, voted to end the peacetime emergency seven times this year. And Republican leaders said they still oppose the governor's emergency powers, powers he still has today.

“Once he had emergency powers, that’s where everything fell apart because he was making all the decisions and we could not stop or stand against those decisions," Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, told reporters on Thursday, Dec. 18. "That’s been incredibly frustrating."

Throughout the 2020 campaign season, GOP lawmakers and candidates held in-person events without requirements for masking or social distancing. President Donald Trump, in his effort to snap the state's longest-in-the-nation track record of supporting a Democratic presidential candidate, held several rallies in the state that violated state orders around gatherings.

And just after an October rally in the state, Trump reported that he'd tested positive for the illness. Congressmen Tom Emmer, Jim Hagedorn and Pete Stauber flew on Air Force One with the president just before he became ill. They, along with several other Minnesota Republicans, met or were near Trump as he rallied in Minnesota. The trio tested negative for COVID-19 after their exposure but several who attended the Bemidji event were infected with some requiring hospitalization.

Gazelka was among a handful of GOP state senators who reported that they'd contracted COVID-19 following a November post-election party with more than 100 guests and an in-person caucus meeting. They came under fire last month after some Republican lawmakers who'd been at the events attended a special legislative session and didn't notify their colleagues about potential exposure.

Sen. Jerry Relph, a Republican from St. Cloud, tested positive for COVID-19 after the event. He died from complications of COVID-19 on Friday, Dec. 18.

Walz said he's been unwilling to work on certain COVID-19 issues with GOP lawmakers since they've bucked health guidance and state orders on face masks, social distancing and gathering.

“Working together is one thing but I was never going to accept their premise that this is not a real thing and that we should just let everything go back to normal. So their complaint is, ‘the governor doesn’t listen to us,'" Walz said. "And no, I’m not going to listen to you on something that goes against all the data, goes against all of the best practices."

Walz said he laments the political polarization that took hold over the issue of pandemic response. From Trump's initial comments likening the disease to the flu and offering little guidance on a federal response to state lawmakers who pressed the governor as recently as last week to reopen businesses.

“This thing got blown apart because it got ideological," Walz said.

More darkness, then spring on the horizon

Perched at a familiar podium in the State Emergency Operations Center, Walz on Wednesday, Dec. 16, told Minnesotans that COVID-19 vaccines had started rolling out around the state.

Health care workers and long-term care residents would get the first batch. And more were on the way.

The spring following the pandemic's winter lay ahead.

But before the sun could rise on the longer, brighter days, Minnesotans would have to hunker down a bit longer.

"We are not out of the woods yet," he said.

RELATED: In election video, Govs. Ventura, Pawlenty, Dayton, Walz plead for patience, civility

Indoor entertainment venues would remain closed through at least early January, Walz said, and bars and restaurants could offer outdoor service along with to-go orders, but indoor dining would have to wait. The governor also announced that elementary school students could be back in classrooms in January.

Restaurant owners that had been prepared to open Friday, Dec. 18, said they were struggling before and another three weeks without indoor dining would be the nail in the coffin for some. A handful opened in defiance of state orders, saying they weren't willing to stay closed any longer.

Sure there was hope on the horizon, but that wouldn't help them pay staff or past due bills, they said.

While the state's business community had been patient as the state weathered the pandemic's storm, leaders warned that their patience and viability could run out without a path to reopening.

"We're all in it together to not just protect us against the virus, but we're all in it together also — and I want to put an emphasis on this for the governor — that we're all in this also to protect the private sector economy," Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President Doug Loon said. "Without it, we don't have jobs, we don't have a tax base."

As aid payments made their way to hardest-hit business owners and those out of work, Walz asked the fractured state to hold on a little longer.

"We're going to get through this. We're moving to that new phase," Walz said. “That sun is rising, this will be the week with the longest, darkest nights. But next week starts moving toward spring and that's just where we're at."

This story is part of a 13-day series that looks at all the ways 2020 has changed us. From now until 2021, expect stories on workplace and education, sports, economics, politics and everything in between. Follow Dana Ferguson on Twitter @bydanaferguson, call 651-290-0707 or email dferguson@forumcomm.com.

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Health care after COVID-19: vaccine passports, social disruption and a forgetting of this era

Paul John Scott — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 13:00:00 GMT

ROCHESTER, Minn. — We don't know how long it will take — it might take until June, it could take longer — but normal life will return eventually.

Children will board school buses. Lines will form without 6-foot gaps.

Fans will fill stands, shoppers will fill stores, the plastic barriers will come down, the hugs will come back, faces will become visible and people will travel through crowds without worry.

Or will they?

Experts say that pandemics change us, after all, and not always in ways that make sense, especially when it comes to the way we view health and our surroundings. After all, if our response to pandemics were rational, we would immediately set about stopping the next one at its source — in the wild.

We would, for example, fully fund the so-called "One Health" initiatives dedicated to building tripwires for the global interconnection of humans, wildlife and domesticated animals with whom we share viruses.

That's how we got COVID-19, after all: From a virus jumping species in the aftermath of climate change and destruction of habitat.

Instead, as reported in the current issue of The Nation, the Trump administration in 2019 canceled USAID funding for Predict, a global program for tracking viruses in bat colonies and breaking down bureaucracies that artificially separate the overseers of wilderness from global health programs.

So yes, COVID-19 will change us in ways that do not always make sense. Let's start with some changes that did make sense. For instance, health care became more cooperative during COVID-19, says Dr. John Halamka, president of Mayo Clinic Platform.

"The pandemic has been a tragedy, but it has accelerated innovation 10 years in 10 months," Halamka says. "The greatest lesson we learned was that working together enables us to solve the biggest problems."

Just as Apple, Google, and other digital firms came together to create a privacy-protecting contact tracing, he says, cooperation soared between private hospital systems and academic health centers.

"We had to coordinate decision-making in every county to open and close schools, restaurants and bars based on data," Halamka says. "Twelve-hundred companies came together to create the COVID-19 Healthcare Alliance ... Competitors worked together for the benefit of all."

That's all happened already. Looking into his crystal ball, the Mayo artificial intelligence futurist predicts the need for novel technologies to signal proof-of-vaccine, an expansion of virtual care and telehealth into treating complex health problems at home, and a renewed focus on disparities in care.

"We will focus on equity," he says. "So that each person gets the care they need, when they need it."

Learning difficult lessons

Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the NYU �� of Medicine, is also sanguine about COVID-19. He believes we have learned difficult lessons.

"I think we'll come out of it better," he says. "Even though we'll come out of it with too many people whose deaths could have been prevented."

In tallying the winners and losers of the lost year that was 2020, Caplan singles out the global drug industry for its fast production of safe and effective vaccines. It was the cavalry, and that will be remembered.

"I think the pharmaceutical industry will find its reputation buffed up," he says. "They were down at the bottom of who Americans trusted or liked. I think their reputation will be improved, and that as a result it will be harder to go after them on issues like the high cost of drugs."

MORE FROM THE 2020 PROJECT:

The virus, the riots, the election: The unforgettable 2020 Remember the 'Dumpster fire' of 2016? This year was far hotter. Many of us suffered; some found ways to beat the heat.
Has the education world learned from the pandemic? The situation has extended far longer than many people originally anticipated it would. So, the question remains: Months into the pandemic, what is the impact on education, and what does it mean for the future?
How the coronavirus pandemic altered the workplace in 2020, possibly for good Various forms of the work-from-home model could be here to stay, along with other changes adopted by companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the losing side of this ledger sheet, however, Caplan believes the aftermath of COVID-19 will not be kind to the outgoing president.

"I think we'll be pointing fingers at the Trump administration for hundreds of thousands of deaths, some of which could have been prevented, and that they just blew it. That will make Trump go down as an unelectable person in 2024."

Another loser, in Caplan's view, is our insistence on seeing medicine as something exclusively conducted with pharmaceutical and biological treatments, a focus neglecting vital social and behavioral aspects of health care — like how to get people to wear masks.

"I think one of things we have to do is to get better at persuading people to do things to help their neighbors," he says. "We don't really spend much on that research. We spend a lot on biology and genetics, but not nearly enough on trying to change risk behaviors."

LIke Mayo's Halamka, Caplan sees proof of inoculation passports as inevitable.

"I think you'll see people carrying vaccine passports around to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID," he says. "Those will likely be required to get on a train, boat, cruise ship, airline or to travel internationally."

"A lot of people worry the government's going to make them have these cards, but I think it's the private sector that actually takes the lead. We're a little more comfortable when somebody says, 'if you want to come in the gym, you have to show me a passport,' because you don't have to go in the gym."

"If you don't like the vaccine passport," he says, "you're going to have to take it up with the airline, and the airline can impose those conditions as it wishes. It's not something you're going to win a lawsuit about."

RELATED: For travel and tourism industry, pandemic brought both short-term and lasting changes Almost as soon as it was identified, the coronavirus pandemic posed a challenge to businesses that depend on travel and tourism. Those businesses may have to maintain a delicate balance between safety and commerce for an interminable amount of time.

Our entrepreneurial spirit will almost certainly trigger a robust market in counterfeit passports, Caplan adds, but that being said, the celebrated American streak of individualism, "really damaged us severely," in the final lesson.

"By not pulling together, by not having a common message, by having different parts of the country following different messaging from their governors, whether it was mask-don't mask, distance-don't distance, go to school-don't go to school, eat in a restaurant-don't eat in a restaurant, we wound up spreading the virus. So there's no doubt that it hurt us."

And don't get him started on the free and open marketplace of ideas that is the internet.

"There's been more interest in science," Caplan says. "But at the same time, the internet has turned out to be a cesspool of misinformation — bigotry, bias, crazy views. I don't know what you do about that ... That's going to be a constant problem for a while."

A relaxed state

For Philipp Blom, historian and author of " Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938," our parallels with the period following the Great Influenza are few. It was an era overwhelmingly affected by war and physical collapse, in his reading. Except for the troubling rise, post-pandemic, of bigotry.

"If we learn anything from other pandemics," Blom says, "it is that there is likely to be some degree of social and economic change afterward, as old structures are shaken up or weakened."

He believes we in the comfortable, overweight, COVID-19-afflicted Western nations will be affected by COVID-19, more than anything else, for its harsh introduction to state control.

"For many people, this is the moment when the state returns into their lives. They have lived lives without curfews and police controls, without being forced to wear masks, to stay at home, to cancel travel — without the massive and restrictive influence the (government) now exercises over their lives."

The 1920s saw the rise of anti-immigration sentiment and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. As historians like John M. Barry, author of " The Great Influenza," have argued, because the government of the day tried to repress or downplay the truth of that outbreak — something experienced by Americans early in the 2020 outbreak — the very idea of truth itself became less knowable, leading to unintended consequences.

"Witch hunts and conspiracy theories are also classic accompanying signs (of pandemics) through the ages," Blom says, "and these conspiracies often use old narratives like anti-semitic tropes."

"During the Middle Ages, Jews were supposed to have poisoned the wells to make Christians sick," Blom says. He sees similar phenomena at work today in the rise of "conspiracy nuts from QAnon to others blaming George Soros or Bill Gates."

Tendency to forget

"Pandemics tend to exacerbate trends that were already in place," adds Laura Spinney, author of " Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World." "If there was a stream of xenophobia underlying society, then maybe ... you would find it easier to blame foreigners for this disease, even though that's not the real cause."

Spinney says few lessons were learned from the Spanish Flu, and she holds similar expectations for COVID-19.

"If you look back over history, our tendency as human beings has been to forget pandemics as soon as they're passed. We cycle between complacency and panic. We panic when the pandemic erupts, then we forget about it, go back to complacency, and we don't take the necessary steps to ensure we will be better prepared next time."

"When you're inside one as we are now, there's a lot of talk about how things will never be the same, blah blah blah, but we do have this tendency to forget. So there's this link between forgetting and being unprepared."

Spinney's book points to an odd series of counter-movements that emerged after the 1918 flu, including alternative medicine, "our love of fresh air and our passion for sport," as well as the systems of universal health care that were adopted throughout Europe.

Epidemiology became a science during this same period. But in general, the wonders of science and medicine took a beating.

"It definitely reshaped the way medicine was delivered from the 1920s on," she says. "After the war and pandemic, a lot of things people had held sacred ... like science and technology, they started to question them," she says. "Because where had science and technology led us? To industrial scale war, and it hadn't been able to stem this dreadful pandemic."

In her book, she calls this realization "humiliating."

"We're not terribly good at humility are we?" she says. "But I think pandemics are one of the few things that does instill humility now and then ... Hopefully we'll remember we're not invincible just long enough to make ourselves a little more robust in the future."

"Maybe this will be different," she adds, "because it is the first postmodern pandemic that was witnessed in great detail. So we'll have to wait and see. But although we forget them, they do change us, and not necessarily in the way we think they will. I think that is the lesson for history."

Music promoters see bright lights and the return of concerts on the horizon

Christa Lawler — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:00:00 GMT

DULUTH — The last concert Greg Carlson saw live was Robert Plant at Bluestem Amphitheater in Moorhead, Minn. — a bucket-list show that he went to alone in September 2019, drawn also by the Led Zeppelin frontman’s tour-mate, Lillie Mae.

The Fargo, N.D.-based professor, who teaches at Concordia College, is a major music fan whose first show was by a Los Angeles punk band with an unprintable name when he was in seventh grade.

“That was a galvanizing experience,” he recalled.

Since then, Carlson has seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of live shows: Ray Charles, B.B. King, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, U2, R.E.M. His favorite live performer was Prince, who he saw four times, including an intimate show at the Oslo Concert House in Norway.

Now the self-described rule-follower hasn’t seen anything live for a year. He had tickets to a couple of Ween concerts — and when the shows were postponed, he held the tickets instead of taking a refund. Meanwhile, Carlson hasn’t streamed a small-venue performance on his phone or stood 6-feet away from other humans at an outdoor space. He is, instead, a vinyl collector making use of his designated listening room.

“What I did to fill the void was listen to a lot of music at home and cry,” he said.

The live-music scene shut down in March in response to COVID-19, leaving fans, musicians, venue operators, promoters and others who work in the biz scrambling to find creative ways to bring music to people — while also social distancing and wearing masks. Now, with vaccines a tangible reality, some in the entertainment business are seeing bright lights and the return of crowds on the horizon. But normalcy might have a twist — including alternative venues, a need for flexibility, and streaming options that were implemented during the peak of the pandemic period.

Jade Nielsen, the longtime promoter behind Jade Presents, was following the pandemic as it rolled through Europe and the West Coast last winter. He was quick to act as COVID-19 cases cropped up in the Midwest.

“We were most certainly among the first businesses to shut down and among the last to start to operate in any sense of normal,” said Nielsen, whose company focuses mostly on the Fargo-Moorhead area, but also sets up events in the Duluth market, including concerts at Symphony Hall and the NorShor Theatre.

Stream on

Mid-February 2020: A tourist destination on the Mississippi River drew a couple thousand music fans to the city for a relatively new, two-day event. Big Turn Music Festival in Red Wing, Minn., scheduled 209 bands to play at nearly two dozen venues — among them the American Legion, United Lutheran Church, coffee shops, pubs and pizzerias.

While it was among one of the final large-scale music events before Minnesotans were asked by Gov. Tim Walz to shelter in place, its fans won’t be so lucky this year.

“I made the decision, probably back in September, that the festival for 2021 would not be a terrestrial event or an in-person festival,” said founder Sam Brown, a Red Wing native who also started Mid West Music Fest in Winona, Minn.

Brown was quick to shift his attention online with Land of 10,000 Streams, a free live-streaming, crowd-sourced music festival — Courtney Yasmineh, The Brothers Burn Mountain, Mother Banjo and more — that was held in April and will likely get another run in 2021.

(Its Facebook page continues to aggregate live performances from regional musicians.)

Streaming concerts is here to stay, predicted Roger Reinert, executive director of the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. The venue’s operators have spent this event-light period integrating touch-free ticketing and cashless exchanges, making aesthetic adjustments and building in a way to bring performances to a home audience that won’t soon feel comfortable in a crowd.

“We anticipate a lot of bigger events will be in-person

and

virtual,” Reinert said.

Nielsen has had a handful of virtual events, he said, that incorporate local business to create a package: streaming plus dinner plus drinks — all at home. He’s planning on expanding the model to include other cities like Bismarck, Duluth and Rochester.

Nielsen has found that audiences are eager to return, but in the meantime, people are tempering their expectations. Recently, a new headliner had to be called in for one of his events, but ticket holders rolled with the new lineup.

An interest in streaming varies from concert-goer to concert-goer. Reinert would rather be face-to-face — whether it’s a show at Amsoil Arena or grabbing drinks with friends.

Brown, though, is content to view from home. He was a student at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., when YouTube started gaining viewers. He had a YouTube-famous classmate, and sought his help recording and uploading his own live show to the platform. Now, more than a decade later, he might geek out over a Metallica concert and all the behind-the-scenes action available for public consumption.

Gone outside

In the summer of 2019, the keepers of Earth Rider Brewery and its taproom, Cedar Lounge, began billing the land between the two buildings — which could potentially hold about 2,000 people — as Earth Rider Festival Grounds. A year later, as all events shifted outside, the grounds in Superior, Wis., became a go-to for craft beer and music fans.

“COVID hit, and everybody wanted to be outside,” said Brad Nelson, the company’s director of brands. “It's helped establish the space.”

This past summer, legions of acts played there: Charlie Parr, Good Morning Bedlam, Dead Man Winter, Kid Dakota and more.

The Earth Rider crew beefed it up by building a stage. As the season went on, they rented a tent. When it got cold, they added a furnace. Earth Rider Festival Grounds remained active through the North Country Holidays: Market & Musical Revue on Nov. 28.

There are plans to have bonfire pits and skating available through the winter.

“One thing we’ve learned is that we’ll do more outdoors than we have been,” Nelson said.

In Rochester, Brother Ali was among a half-dozen artists to play shows in parking lots around town. The Minneapolis hip-hop act was at John Marshall High ��, with overflow online, on the land adjacent to other high schools and community centers. There was a Minnesota Music Video Menagerie — a drive-in battle of the bands where the videos played on a large screen, and the music was available via a radio dial. Patrons used their headlights to vote for the winners. Social distancing and masking rules applied.

“That ended up being a successful event,” said Tyler Aug, who was one of the event’s producers and a member of the Rochester Posse, a group that — in addition to promotions — creates video recaps of events.

A return to normalcy, or something like it

There has been an unpredictable positive to come from a stalled music scene. Nielsen said he is getting inquiries from artists that have never before played in his markets.

“I just got asked this week about two or three events that are very exciting in 2022,” he said. “This might end up helping cities like ours see shows we haven’t ever seen. There are some artists that are wanting to go out and do unique things and play places they’ve never been before. Anytime there is a substantial shift in business and life, it gives time to ponder what their next steps are going to be.”

Reinert anticipates a slow start to 2021. His eyes are on the summer at Bayfront Festival Park, the outdoor venue on the Duluth Harbor Basin managed by the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

“I think we’re really fortunate in the Northland with just how the timing is going to work in the next six to nine months,” he said.

Nielsen said he thinks outdoor concerts, masked and distanced, will happen this summer. By the fall, things might be more normal.

Carlson hopes so. He wants to see the Ween show at Big Sky Brewery next summer in Missoula, Mont. And he’s comfortable with going, he said, if:

“I think I’ll be comfortable going when I can get the vaccine,” he said. “My whole family, we’re ready to do it. We’re waiting our turn in line. Even if we have to wear masks, I’d be totally fine.”

COVID-19 hits the sports world on the field, and in the wallet

Jess Myers — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 12:00:00 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS — With the full-on arrival of COVID-19 in the public consciousness in the middle of March, sports around the planet came to a sudden halt and a million heartbreaking stories of “what could have been” played out in every corner of our region.

In Grand Forks, the North Dakota hockey team was ranked atop the college polls and barreling toward what could have been a showdown with Bemidji State, Minnesota Duluth — the Bulldogs were seeking a third consecutive NCAA crown — and Minnesota State, Mankato, all of which were red hot in the second half of the 2019-20 season. None of them got a chance to prove what they could do on the ice, and there was even a thought that the Fighting Hawks should consider hanging a black banner in their rink in memory of what could have been the program’s ninth national championship season.

In Eden Prairie, Minn., the boys basketball team was 28-0, ranked first in Minnesota and in the top 10 nationally, and headed for the state tournament. Then they learned that just like that, the season was over as the state and the nation locked down due to the pandemic. The Eagles gathered in their gym a few days later to cut down the nets, symbolic of a title run, and share hugs, tears and memories from a magical season with a most unsatisfying conclusion.

After a few weeks of eerie spring silence on the sports scene — no March Madness, no early season baseball, no NHL playoffs, no NCAA Frozen Four — it became routine to read tweets highlighting some of the day’s big plays from the Korean Baseball League. In May, NASCAR ratings shot up because it was the only major American sports league with live events happening. It was a perfect encapsulation of just how much sports mean to our society. Having something to cheer, and a team to break your heart, is a need for many. Like myriad other things, to lose all of that for a time had an impact on our lives.

Spuds and siblings

A few of those million stories are being told on a residential street in south Moorhead, Minn., where the Walthall family has been seeing an up-close version of how the pandemic affects every element of sports in the Red River Valley. Chad is the men’s basketball head coach at Minnesota State, Moorhead. His daughter Brooke is a sophomore volleyball player for the Dragons. Twin sons Blake and Brady are seniors at Moorhead High �� and starred for the unbeaten Spuds football team in the fall. The boys, and their parents, didn’t get a chance to go to Minneapolis and play for a state title in the Minnesota Vikings’ home stadium.

READ MORE: The 2020 Project

“This team may be remembered more than any other, because they were so terrific under such different circumstances,” Chad Walthall said of the Spuds, admitting that the kids handled the adversity of a season played during a pandemic much better than most parents. “Everyone is going through the same things, but for seniors and parents of seniors, it probably hurts a little bit more.”

The amount that has been lost is staggering. Hundreds of high school events and tournaments were cancelled. Pro baseball and soccer played abbreviated seasons without fans. The Vikings, Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Gophers played in empty venues. When the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic, the city of Minneapolis was one week away from hosting the NCAA Wrestling Championships, which they had pursued since 2013 and had planned for several years. The 40,000 fans expected to fill U.S. Bank Stadium — three-quarters of them from outside the region — and all of the dollars they would spend in the city, disappeared overnight.

“That’s a day we will never forget. It was devastating for us,” said Matt Meunier, director of Sports Minneapolis. “To get that close and have the bottom fall out, it was a rough day for sure.”

A year that started out so well for sports in the region’s largest city, with a successful hosting of Hockey Day Minnesota and the announcement of the NHL’s Winter Classic coming to Target Field, ended with them losing 30 sports events, including the X Games. Minneapolis is hoping to get the Winter Classic back when the NHL resumes some kind of traditional schedule, possibly in the 2021-22 season.

Interstate inequality

With Minnesota initially putting virus-prevention measures in place that were more strict than those of the Dakotas, there was also a phenomenon of sports events jumping the Red River, or the South Dakota border, and setting up in less-restrictive environments.

“Once things started to open back up in May, North Dakota was a little bit more fast-moving and on the Minnesota side they were a little more conservative with the pace that they opened things back up,” said Kali Mork, director of sports for the Fargo-Moorhead CVB. “So on the North Dakota side ... we did host a fair number of events, especially in baseball. Some even saw a bump in the number of teams that wanted to come to Fargo and play, because they couldn’t play in Minnesota at that time.”

This meant teams that had never before played in North Dakota were visiting for the first time, and four hockey tournaments normally played in the Twin Cities were relocated to Fargo. Mork said that in all, the additional events meant around $500,000 in new direct visitor spending in the community. But that good news was minor ray of light compared to the losses felt in town with NDSU football only hosting one game, with few fans, in the 2020 season. Each “normal” Bison home game brings around $500,000 into the community. With that gone, and the virus-related cancelation of other big events like the Fargo Marathon, Mork estimates that Fargo-Moorhead lost around $6 million in sports spending in 2020.

Recruiting restrictions

Among the many NCAA restrictions put in place in this strangest of seasons was an extension of their “dead period” when college coaches on the Division I and Division II levels were not allowed to recruit. For coaches like Walthall, this means uncertainty about the future. But he got a break in that his sons were playing summer basketball, so that meant getting to see players at tournaments that were restricted to parents only. In places like Sioux Falls, there were few other restrictions in place, at least initially.

“I couldn’t watch some of their tournaments in Minnesota because nobody was allowed in, not even parents. When I’d go to the Pentagon, nobody cared. You would try to do some social distancing, but in the spring and summer, a lot of people weren’t even wearing masks,” Walthall recalled. “(Coaches) were not allowed to go out and watch and recruit players unless you had your own kids playing. That’s the only reason I got to go watch a little bit, and even then I wasn’t allowed to watch games unless my kids were playing in them.”

The level of restrictions at sporting events has changed as the pandemic has hit much harder in the Dakotas, later in the year. At the Sanford Pentagon, the major sports and event venue in Sioux Falls, there were initial layoffs of around 200 staff for lack of sports there. Today some of those people are back on the job and the games go on, with tournaments like the college basketball Dakota Showcase happening in an empty arena. But even to those few lucky people who get to see sports in person, something is missing.

“I miss the fans, and I miss the energy that comes with fans. I miss the excitement of a team going on a run, sometimes because of the momentum of the crowd,” said Steve Young, president of Sanford Sports. “When you can hear every single play called or every single adjustment made, you almost feel like you’re in an illegal environment. It’s heartbreaking, but at the same time I understand it and I get it. I’ll be the first one cheering loud in a full arena when we can.”

Counting on a comeback

The arena on campus at MSU Moorhead is empty as well. The fall volleyball season was canceled for Brooke Walthall’s team. Chad Walthall’s Dragons are practicing, in advance of an abbreviated basketball season scheduled to start in early January. They have already had COVID-19 run through their roster, and the hope is that with immunity and a vaccine in 2021, they can just play, and the sports world can finally return to some kind of normalcy. That would be a good thing for the players, the fans, the parents, the coaches and the businesses that rely on all of them.

“I can’t wait until next year, because I think people are going to appreciate sports in general,” Chad Walthall said. “It’s certainly a big part of the fabric of our country, and I think everybody is going to embrace and appreciate sports maybe more than they ever have.”

This story is part of a 13-day series that looks at all the ways 2020 has changed us. From now until 2021, expect stories on workplace and education, sports, economics, politics and everything in between. Jess Myers (@JessRMyers) can be reached at jrmyers@forumcomm.com.

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