This whole summer was supposed to be a great Minnesota get-together.
Most of us had masked up, locked down and looked out for each other. This was our reward. We were vaxxed, relaxed, and ready to have fun again.
We booked flights. We bought movie tickets. We could almost taste the Pronto Pups.
But then came the delta variant, filling hospitals with the unvaccinated, pushing Minnesota's COVID-positive rates up and up.
For 3 million fully vaccinated Minnesotans who did everything right, the question becomes: Is it still OK to get that Pronto Pup?
"I am really struggling with this," said Dr. Beth Thielen, an adult and pediatric infectious disease physician and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota — and a huge fan of the Minnesota State Fair.
"I'm a born-and-raised Minnesotan who loves the State Fair and was so sad it didn't happen last year," she said.
But.