Body Wellness

Back in the spring, college campuses around Minnesota went into shutdown mode in response to the worldwide COVID pandemic. Students were sent packing; residence halls were closed and faculty — after extended spring breaks — began offering all of their courses online.  Most everyone understood that colleges couldn’t survive if the shutdown continued: Small liberal arts schools that base their educational model on a residential, community-focused experience wouldn’t survive if students’ only option was to go to school on a laptop in their childhood bedrooms.  This reality, combined with Minnesota Department of Health research concluding that, with significant changes, colleges could safely bring students back , meant that the vast majority of the state’s colleges and universities made the decision to welcome their students back in the fall.  Each school faced unique challenges, depending on their location and the makeup of their student body. Smaller colleges in ...

MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health. Here are the latest updates from November 8, 2020: Thirty-one more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Sunday, for a total of 2,656.  Minnesota has now reported more than 30 deaths in four of the last five days, and a total of 199 deaths in the first eight days of November. In July, when the outbreak declined, the state only reported 159 deaths over the entire month. If COVID-19 deaths continue in November at the state’s current pace, Minnesota would break its one-month record of 696 deaths set in May. Of the people whose deaths were announced Sunday, six were in their 90s, 15 were in their 80s, four were in their 70s, three were in their 60s, one was in their 50s, and two were in t...

MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health. Here are the latest updates from November 5, 2020: 164,865 cases; 2,555 deaths Twenty-five more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Thursday, for a total of 2,555. Of the people whose deaths were announced Thursday, six were in their 70s,  nine were in their 80s and 10 were in their 90s. Seventeen of the 25 deaths announced Thursday were among residents of long-term care facilities. MDH also said Thursday there have been 164,865 total cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of positives is up 3,952 from Wednesday’s count — one of several daily records set in the last week — and is based on 34,305 new tests. You can find the seven-day positive case average here. The current cas...

MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health. Here are the latest updates from November 3, 2020: 157,096 cases; 2,499 deaths Fifteen more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Tuesday, for a total of 2,499. Of the people whose deaths were announced Tuesday, one was in their 50s, one was in their 60s, two were in their 70s, seven were in their 80s, three were in their 90s and one was age 100 or older. Seven of the 15 people whose deaths were announced Tuesday were residents of long-term care facilities. MDH also said Tuesday there have been 157,096 total cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of positives is up 3,476 from Monday’s count and is based on 37,338 new tests. The count of 3,476 is an all-time one day new case record, ...

A group of researchers from seven health systems in the United States and Canada including Bloomington-based HealthPartners has developed an algorithm that can predict and identify individuals at higher risk of attempting suicide. Rebecca Rossom To identify members at elevated suicide risk, explained Rebecca Rossom, HealthPartners psychiatrist and senior investigator, a group of researchers from the health systems known as the Mental Health Research Network created a machine-learning model to identify a set of health predictors that place individuals at greater risk of attempting suicide. The model then selected members who had experienced a pre-identified number of those health predictors. The set of health predictors for suicide risk were, Rossom said, “in a lot of ways what you’d expect. Things like, ‘Have they had a previous suicide attempt?’ ‘Have they had a depression diagnosis?’ ‘A substance-use disorder?’ ‘An alcohol-use disorder?’ We have access to that information an...

MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health. Here are the latest updates from November 1, 2020: 150,672 cases; 2,475 deaths Eighteen more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Sunday, for a total of 2,475. Of the people whose deaths were announced Sunday one was in their 50s, one was in their 60s, seven were in their 70s, six were in their 80s and three were in their 90s. Thirteen of the 18 deaths announced Sunday were among residents of long-term care facilities. MDH also said Sunday there have been 150,672 total cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of positives is up 2,200 from Saturday’s count and is based on 27,524 new tests. You can find the seven-day positive case average here. On Saturday, MDH announced an increase of...

This story comes from a partnership of Wisconsin Watch and WPR . Harper Marten donned a mask, gown, gloves, face shield and booties for a July 10 visit with her father, Warren Shore. She had not seen him in person since March. Inside the memory care unit at Parkview Gardens, a senior living community in Racine, Marten held her father’s hand. Marten told him she loved him and sang “My Funny Valentine,” a song Shore taught her when she was a child. Those would be her last 30 minutes with her father, who died the next day — five days after testing positive for COVID-19. Marten, a school teacher from Wauwatosa, knew her father didn’t have many years left, even before the positive test. Shore had lived with Alzheimer’s disease for a decade when Marten enrolled him in hospice care in March — one day before Department of Health Services Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm issued Wisconsin’s “Safer at Home” order at the direction of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. But Marten wasn’t prepare...

We may be living in a time of mandated physical distancing, but organizers of Minnesota’s semiannual African Mental Health Summit say they are committed to bringing event participants closer together by building strong connections between individuals — and by emphasizing the innate strengths of African and African American culture. The conference, titled “ Building Mindful Connections: The Invincibility of Mindful Self-Care for Helping Professionals ,” will be held virtually on Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. CDT. Richard Oni Conference co-organizer Richard Oni, executive director of Progressive Individual Resources , a St. Paul-based social and behavioral health social-service agency, said that he and other conference presenters will focus their messages on the “building connections” theme. “Because of the fact that now everything is done online and people are practicing social distancing,” he said, “we want to talk about how we can still stay emotionally connected, how can we ke...

 MinnPost provides updates on coronavirus in Minnesota Sunday through Friday. The information is published following a press phone call with members of the Walz administration or after the release of daily COVID-19 figures by the Minnesota Department of Health. Here are the latest updates from October 25, 2020: Twenty-one more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Sunday, for a total of 2,349.  Of the deaths announced Sunday, one person was older than 100, five were in their 90s, seven were in their 80s, four were in their 70s, two were in their 60s, one was in their 50s, and one was in their 30s. Of the 21 deaths announced Sunday, 12 were among residents of long-term care facilities. MDH also said Sunday there have been 133,802 total cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of positives is up 1,680 from Saturday’s count and is based on 34,488 new tests. You can find the seven-day positive case average here. The current caseload ...

Courtesy of Molly Wiese From left: Molly Wiese, son Calvin, husband Phil Wiese, son Bennett, and Wiese's parents, Becky and Bill Miller. This story was produced by KHN (Kaiser Health News), which publishes California Healthline , an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation . KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. Molly Wiese was truly stumped. Her parents and siblings live in Southern California, and Wiese, a 35-year-old lawyer, has returned home every Christmas since she moved to Minnesota in 2007. Because of the pandemic, Wiese thought it would be wiser to stay put for once. But in June, Wiese’s father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and they feared this could be his final holiday season. Should she fly with her husband and two young sons to California, putting her immunocompromised father at risk of COVID-19? Or stay home and miss out on making treasured holiday memories with her parents and children? Her children are in d...