After 20,000 Letters, Will Gov. Walz Bring Common Sense To Our COVID-19 Strategy?

(Golden Valley, MN…) After Gov. Tim Walz issued Executive Order 20-99, Center of the American Experiment immediately launched a grass roots effort (www.COVIDCommonsenseMN.com) to convince him to relax restrictions on bars, restaurants, health clubs and youth sports. As Walz prepares for his afternoon press conference today, he should try to read the 20,000 letters emailed to his office over the last five weeks.

The letters come from parents, small business owners and regular people fed up with arbitrary restrictions that do not follow any scientific or logical pattern. In fact, the number of new cases and positivity rate both peaked at least one week before Gov. Walz’ shutdown of bars and restaurants went into effect on November 20th. The shutdown order had nothing to do with the decrease in the spread of the virus.

Letter writers also noted Minnesota COVID cases rose and fell at the same level in all of our surrounding states with or without mitigation strategies such as mask mandates and business closures. It’s hard to find any substantial benefit to closing bars, restaurants, youth sports and health clubs.

Every letter sent to Gov. Walz was also copied to the sender’s State Senator and State Representative, meaning over 60,000 total letters were sent to the Capitol during this campaign.

“It will be hard for Gov Walz to ignore 20,000 Minnesotans telling him to relax these illogical restrictions,” said John Hinderaker, President of Center of the American Experiment. “His own data, backed by overwhelming public opinion, should allow bars, restaurants, health clubs and youth sports the freedom to open on their own terms.”