Minnesota Covid-19 survey halted after team members report racial slurs, state officials say

[TomCADem]

Source: CNN

(CNN)A door-to-door Covid-19 survey in Minnesota has been halted after team members reported receiving racial and ethnic slurs in the city of Eitzen, according to state health officials, but the city denies the claims.

"A door-to-door Covid-19 testing survey has been halted due to multiple incidents in outstate Minnesota of residents intimidating and shouting racial and ethnic slurs at state and federal public health survey team," the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) tweeted Friday.
Eitzen is in southern Minnesota near the Iowa boarder.

The Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) survey is "a voluntary, in-person survey to understand the effect Covid-19 is having on Minnesota communities," the MDH website says.

"Many of the individual incidents could perhaps have been considered misunderstandings," Dan Huff, assistant commissioner of MDH's Health Protection Bureau, told CNN affiliate WCCO. "But over the past week, a pattern emerged where the CASPER teams that included people of color were reporting more incidents than teams that did not include people of color. Given the uncertainty of the situation and the impact the incidents had on team members, CDC decided to demobilize their field staff."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/27/us/minnesota-covid-19-survey-racial-slurs/index.html

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Thanks to Trump and Tucker Carlson, being openly racist is part of the Republican mainstream.

[DFW]

1. This is why I'm better off not in politics

I’d order the names of the offenders to be registered, and treatment denied in case of a bad infection. I know that would be wrong, cruel and an overreaction, but if this is the way these people treat well-meaning workers whose only intent was to help them, let them seek treatment from Tucker Carlson. Like I saud, it’s a good thing I’m not in politics.

[progree]

2. Mayor of Minnesota city disputes MDH reports of health workers being threatened

Mayor of Minnesota city disputes MDH reports of health workers being threatened (Eitzen), MPR News, 9/26/20

The mayor of a southern Minnesota city is pushing back on state health department claims that a COVID-19 survey team was threatened there earlier this month.

... ((the survey team)) specifically cited the Sept. 15 incident in Eitzen, a city of about 250 people in southeastern Minnesota along the Iowa border, saying a survey team reported their car was blocked in and they were confronted by several people — one of them allegedly armed.

But Adamson said that's not an accurate account. He said a city official and two other residents responded to concerns about people going door-to-door in an unmarked car with California plates.

"Two vehicles driven by the city official and residents were parked on either side of the COVID-19 team's vehicle, but it was never blocked," Adamson wrote in a city statement posted to Facebook on Friday night. They contacted the Houston County Sheriff's Office, which confirmed the legitimacy of the survey.

"After properly identifying the team, they were left to continue conducting their research within the city," Adamson said. He said no one was armed, and suggested the team may have mistaken a holstered fire department communications radio for a firearm.

"In a small town where everyone knows everyone, a group of unfamiliar people with out-of-state plates is unusual, and to some residents is a cause for concern," Adamson wrote. "This situation was handled professionally, courteously and unbiased with no racial slurs, threats or inappropriate comments made."

A message sent to MDH’s communications staff on Saturday was not immediately returned.

More: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/09/26/mayor-of-minnesota-city-disputes-mdh-reports-of-health-workers-being-threatened

I'll have to wait until I hear more before I decide what happened here. But it's not the only example given of teams being confronted, racist epithets and so on, although it's the only example I know of where the town or locality was named in news reports, and/or where there were some specifics reported e.g. the holstered gun, vehicle being blocked in, etc.

I read three Minnesota/local news websites every day -- Minnesota Public Radio, and CBS's and ABC's local affiliates.

I'm not claiming these kinds of things don't happen in Minnesota ... we have plenty of fuckheads like this all over the state (even next door, sigh).

[llashram]

3. of course "officials deny"

all I know is when someone calls you nigger meanly, hatefully, spittle flying everywhere, these types are not people "misunderstanding " a damn thing. America is woefully divided now and I just don't know about our future as a country of united states. In 3 plus years America went from covertly racist and segregated to openly racist and hateful with the enabling of a mostly white administration in D.C, with a few uncle toms sprinkled in for plausible deniability they think.

In the '50s news, when I grew up, was still slow in print, radio and some television compared to the movement of news at the present time. And George Floyd has shown that people will not stand for this shit for much longer. White people like these types in 'outstate' Minnesota and all outstate area's in every state better start crawling back under those rocks they have slithered from in the last 3 years plus. The head slitherer is leaving soon and probably won't stay in America with all the corruption that will be revealed with his family and businesses that hasn't already been revealed.

I have an "outstate" like the one mentioned by officials in Minn. Was driving a friend to her mother's house and like a light switch, lawn signs even billboards went from Biden/Harris to the chump. Yep her mother is a trumper. But she is still mother and sick to my friend. I don't judge or say a word, we are both of the same political standings. And she is trying with her mother. To speak reason and logic. Trumpers just will not hear the truth.

[StClone]

4. Eitzen is almost in Iowa, been there 100's of times.

It's out there. I mean its nice rural hills, valleys and the Upper Iowa River is just south. Hicks, isolated "real Americans" under the control of FOX, AM Hate and if not that just lacking exposure to others makes them scared.