The CDC and Minnesota Department of Health are stopping a program to do door-to-door testing for COVID in Minnesota because health workers doing the testing have been subject to intimidation and racism. Dan Huff, the assistant Minnesota Health Commissioner says that the program just isn't safe anymore.
"The CDC determined the reception these teams were getting in communities was too often hostile. In particular, people of color on these teams reported being subjected to racial slurs."
The incidents have mostly happened in outstate Minnesota, as the health agencies are doing COVID and antibody testing to try and get a handle on how the virus has been spreading. University of Minnesota Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Michael Osterholm says the level of anger is shocking and disturbing.
"What has caused us to become so angry? And so mean. That's what I think, we as Minnesotans, have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves. And I refuse to accept that that is acceptable. I refuse to accept that."
A group doing testing in Eitzen, Minneosta, along the Iowa border, was boxed in by vehicles and one man displayed a gun. The CDC has been doing the door to door testing all across the US, but Minnesota is the first place it's been stopped.