Fifty-eight positive COVID-19 tests were reported last week by St. Thomas’ Center for Well-Being Monday, an increase of 11 from the previous week.
The totals include two employees, four individuals from the Minneapolis campus and 25 from the St. John Vianney College Seminary, where students there have been ordered to quarantine.
Another mass testing opportunity will be available for community members Thursday, Dec. 17. Those interested can sign up for a time slot here.
A nurse on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center was the first in Minnesota to receive a COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday.
Thera Witte, who works in a coronavirus unit at the hospital, said she feels honored to be the first and did not hesitate to volunteer.
Thousands of doses of the Pfizer vaccine began arriving in Minnesota this week, with the VA hospital being the first recipient of 2,925 doses on Monday along with Sanford Bemidji Medical Center, Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester and the Cass Lake Indian Health Service.
The Electoral College decisively confirmed Joe Biden as the nation’s next president, ratifying his November victory in an authoritative state-by-state repudiation of President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede he had lost.
The presidential electors on Monday gave Biden a solid majority of 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump bragged was a landslide when he won the White House four years ago.
Heightened security was in place in some states as electors met to cast paper ballots, with masks, social distancing and other pandemic precautions the order of the day. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside.
St. Thomas community members gathered Dec. 10 to remember sophomore Kyra Winslow, who died in a car crash earlier this month.
Kyra helped everyone around her live life differently. She was not just a friend to many, she was a best friend. Read the full story about Kyra’s legacy here.
Justin Amaker can be reached at justin.amaker@stthomas.edu.