Gov. Tim Walz gave his 2020 State of the State address Sunday amid a global pandemic while self-quarantined.
Walz focused on Minnesota’s priorities: providing more ventilators, more testing, and more hospital capacity and equipment for those on the front lines.
“Minnesotans won’t just prepare for COVID-19, we will lead,” he said.
Walz highlighted private companies such as 3M and Medtronic across Minnesota that are stepping up to create and distribute personal protective equipment and supplies.
Minnesotans’ impact is crossing state borders, he said.
The Mayo Clinic is leading a national trial to use blood from recovered COVID-19 patients as a treatment for ill patients, he said, but everyone is playing a part, from grocers to truck drivers to those staying home.
“You are slowing the spread of this disease. You are protecting your neighbors. You are giving hospitals time to prepare to care for the many who will fall ill.”
“You are making a difference,” he said. “You are saving lives.”
Walz emphasized individual acts of kindness over past weeks: those living in Minneapolis who cheer when health care workers get off their shifts, to dads donating masks to nurses, to children drawing chalk pictures to cheer residents in veterans’ homes and their caretakers.
“No matter how daunting the challenge; no matter how dark the times; Minnesota has always risen up, by coming together,” he said.
Walz said that it’s going to be a tough time, referring to models for Minnesota that estimate COVID-19 cases will peak over the next few months. But Minnesotans will, together, reach a brighter future, he said.
“We won’t just make it to spring. We will come out better on the other side of this winter. Because we are Minnesotans. We see challenges and we tackle them,” Walz said.
“No matter how daunting the challenge; no matter how dark the times; Minnesota has always risen up by coming together.”
Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL- Brooklyn Park, said the House is setting up remote voting for this week’s session to continue the fight against COVID-19.
“We’re here, we’re ready to work, we’re ready to help Minnesotans, and we’re ready to help the governor,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R- East Gull Lake, said that teamwork is vital to beat COVID-19.
“We have to face this thing together,” Gazelka said in a statement before the speech. “It’s not Democrat or Republican; it’s Americans together fighting this.”
“We’re in this together, and we’re going to defeat COVID-19 together,” he said.
