Gov. Tim Walz for one of the first times Thursday suggested benchmarks for ending Minnesota's peacetime emergency and the business and social restrictions to slow the COVID-19 pandemic.
Six months after issuing the emergency order, Walz said he is looking for declines in both the positivity rate of COVID-19 diagnostic testing and the rate of infections that can't be traced to community sources.
"If we could get community spread under 20%, and we could get the test positivity rate under 4, you've got a really good chance of doing most things," Walz said in an interview at the half-year milepost of his pandemic response.
As of Thursday, the rate of cases from unknown community transmission was 35%, an indicator that the virus is spreading beyond the state's ability to track it. The positivity rate was 4.8%, an improvement from 6% late last month.
With the benefit of hindsight, Walz said there are things he would have done differently, but he struck a defiant tone against criticism that he was heavy-handed and argued that Minnesota has weathered the medical and economic tolls of the pandemic better than many states.
"We're starting to figure out how do you find that sweet spot of protecting as many people as you can while allowing things to happen," he said.
The governor's July 22 order mandating indoor mask-wearing has been controversial, but Walz said he should have declared it earlier when there was less political division.
Health officials initially discouraged mask-wearing because they feared people would use up supplies of medical-grade masks needed for doctors and nurses, but he then reversed course when studies suggested even cloth masks offered some benefit.