ST. PAUL -- Governor Tim Walz's executive orders keeping some businesses and all schools closed extend until the end of April, however, it's likely they will be extended. Tuesday Walz and Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm talked about the modeling and trend projections for Minnesota for COVID-19.

Malcolm says, based on global modeling from a few weeks ago, they are expecting peak hospitalizations around the middle of May here in Minnesota.

The middle of May to the middle of June for what we would be expecting with peak hospitalizations.  Hitting the capacity of the intensive care units was modeled out to be a couple of weeks earlier than that, so early May to early June.

Malcolm says they need all of April to continue to build up the ICU capacity in the state's hospitals.

Really the rate-limiting factor for which we have mentioned on prior calls is the availability of ventilators to be able to equip those rooms with.

Malcolm says ICU beds in the state are now up to about 260, but they want to be up to 2,000 by the time the coronavirus hits its peak here in Minnesota.

She says they are expecting to have some new modeling more specific to Minnesota available in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, state leaders are also in the process of creating an additional 2,750 none ICU beds for hospital patients that don't have COVID-19 at Alternative Care Sites set-up around the state.

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

TSM St. Cloud Announcers and Reporters Working from Home

More From 96.7 The River