Thursday, July 8
The state has identified 606,158 cases of COVID-19 as of today, with 597,675 of these patients no longer required to be isolated. 7,617 deaths have been reported. For more information on the current situation, visit the Minnesota Department of Health website.
At the bottom of this email, you will find Met Council workforce statistics related to COVID-19 leave that have been reported to the Employee Resource Center.
Do you have thoughts or concerns on the content or frequency of these COVID-19 update emails? We would love to hear your feedback through the online COVID-19 form, so we can make sure these emails are providing the most useful and timely information to staff.
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At a glance
What you need to know this week:
- Supervisors and staff will soon have access to specific guidance for planning to return teleworking teams to onsite work after Labor Day.
- To assist the planning teams as they create guidance and put together comprehensive information on returning teleworkers to onsite, please share your questions and concerns related to onsite work procedures and logistics using the online COVID-19 form.
- We want to specifically thank all our frontline staff who have continued to work onsite throughout this pandemic in support of our critical services. Your flexibility and commitment to public service and our customers have been key to our organization’s and our region’s success these past 16 months.
Read on for more about these updates.
More planning guidance for fall return-to-onsite work coming this month
Supervisors and staff will soon have access to more guidance with specifics for planning to return teleworking teams to onsite work after Labor Day. Thank you for your questions to help the planning teams provide the best information to help work areas make these critical decisions.
Small numbers of teleworking staff have been returning to onsite work this summer, and we expect larger numbers to return after Labor Day. We don’t expect everyone to be back onsite right away this fall, and the guidance we’ll provide will help your work areas determine both your transition plan and your more long-term needs as a department.
We have built these assumptions into this process:
- More flexible guidelines related to the pandemic will continue – meaning masks, distancing, and related expectations won’t be required for everyone, though we encourage individuals to distance where possible and to wear masks if they choose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks indoors if they are unvaccinated, cannot be vaccinated, or otherwise have health conditions that put them or people in their households at risk.
- At several Met Council facilities, we have space constraints that existed prior to the pandemic. Many departments in those buildings will still need a phased, staggered plan for bringing onsite employees back to the office to address these physical space limitations.
- The Information Services department has been experiencing significant delays in purchasing equipment, and we expect those supply chain delays to continue in the coming months. It may take several weeks or even months to purchase equipment.
Human Resources is wrapping up the updated teleworking procedure and that will be available yet this month. Accompanying that procedure will be a more detailed process document to help each work area assess whether your work, pace of work, and business/customer needs support teleworking and for which aspects of your work. This will also help you discern who needs to be onsite and when.
Additional information will be forthcoming with these resources to help you transition throughout the fall and begin to “normalize” working conditions and expectations moving forward late this year and into early 2022.
In addition, questions regarding when our buildings will reopen to the public are among the items the planning teams will make some decisions on in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to this communication and MetNet for more information.
Share your questions and concerns
We appreciate your patience with this process and continue to welcome your questions. As the planning teams create guidance and put together comprehensive information for employees, it would help us to know what your concerns and questions are related to onsite work procedures and logistics. Please send us your thoughts using the online COVID-19 form.
A word of thanks to our frontline staff
We want to take an opportunity to specifically thank frontline staff who have continued to work onsite throughout this pandemic in support of our critical services, including transit operations and wastewater treatment and collection, as well as some supporting activities.
We know there is a lot of news in this communication about our staff who have been able to telework during this prolonged pandemic response. And we want to call out that we know that sometimes might make you feel like your work is unnoticed.
We see you. Your work is so important. And we thank you for showing up every day.
We’re very hopeful that we’re in the home stretch of dealing with this emergency, as evidenced by these efforts to begin returning others to work sites. Your flexibility and commitment to public service and our customers have been critical to our organization’s and our region’s success these past 16 months. Thank you.
Pandemic emergency ended July 1
The governor's peacetime emergency powers ended July 1. The change came as a result of an act of the legislature, signed by the governor as part of the state budget.
While these powers provided important flexibility for the state to marshal resources to respond to the pandemic, the impact to our day-to-day operations at the Met Council should be minimal. Our pandemic plans and actions of Chair Charlie Zelle will keep us on a course of transitioning teleworking staff back to onsite work after the Labor Day holiday, assuming positive trends related to COVID-19 continue. We will also continue holding our Council and committee meetings and advisory committee meetings virtually at least through Labor Day.
Continue safe practices onsite
The Met Council no longer requires employees and visitors to wear face coverings, practice physical distancing, or participate in temperature screening at our facilities. It’s important to recognize, though, that these requirements being lifted does not mean the pandemic is over.
Everyone should continue these safety and health practices when onsite to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
- Stay home if you’re sick.
- Get tested if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19. Stay home if you tested positive for COVID-19.
- Wash your hands often.
- Clean your work space frequently.
You may continue to wear a mask if you choose to. In addition, to protect yourself, you are encouraged to continue to wear a mask if you are unvaccinated, cannot be vaccinated, have people in your home who cannot be vaccinated, or otherwise you or members of your household are at risk.
Remember, when interacting with others, you should not assume anything about their vaccination status or health situation based on whether or not they are wearing a mask. Employees, customers, or visitors who arrive onsite wearing face coverings should be treated with respect.
Employees should never ask their co-workers about private, personal medical information, including their COVID-19 vaccination status. Be considerate and respect individual privacy.
Tools to help you find vaccination opportunities
As of Tuesday (July 6), 3,078,672 Minnesotans had received at least one vaccine dose and 2,922,291 people had completed the vaccine series. For up-to-date information on vaccine availability and distribution, visit the Minnesota Department of Health vaccine dashboard.
Our progress so far – and our path forward – relies on Minnesotans getting the vaccine. The vaccines are free, safe, and effective, and all Minnesotans age 12 and over can get one right now. Many sites are now offering walk-in appointments.
Check out these tools to find vaccine appointments:
Important reminders related to the vaccine:
- For the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to last longer and be most effective against variants, two shots are required. If you’ve missed your second dose for any reason, get it as soon as possible.
- It takes at least two weeks from the final vaccine dose to develop immunity.
- Even after you are fully vaccinated, you should continue to follow safety recommendations by public health officials and get tested if you are showing symptoms of COVID-19.
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Continue testing to stop the spread of COVID-19
Anyone who is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms should immediately contact their health care provider and seek testing, regardless of their vaccination status. How to get a COVID-19 test:
Check the MetNet pages, FAQs
For the most current information related to the COVID-19 outbreak, visit the MetNet page and be sure to review the FAQs for staff and managers. They are updated as we have new information to communicate.
For Metro Transit work instructions and daily updates on new COVID-19 cases reported at each worksite, visit the Metro Transit MetNet page. For job aids and facilities updates for Environmental Services related to COVID-19, visit the Environmental Services page.
If you have questions, talk to your manager or supervisor or submit a question or concern in the online COVID-19 form.
Check out the latest issues of our internal newsletters:
For those who cannot easily access MetNet and/or would like a printable PDF of the FAQs, here are the most recent versions of these pages:
We will continue updating the FAQ pages on MetNet to reflect updated guidance related to face coverings, work travel, returning teleworkers to onsite work, and more.
Met Council workforce statistics
The following statistics related to COVID-19 have been reported to the Employee Resource Center. The "active positive COVID-19" number is the number of employees who currently have a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. The "cumulative" number marks the total number of employees who received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis since the pandemic began. The second table breaks down the positive cases by division for Community Development (CD), Environmental Services (ES), Metro Transit (MT), Metropolitan Transportation Services (MTS), and Regional Administration (RA).
Employees with positive COVID-19 diagnosis:
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Councilwide |
| Active positive COVID-19 |
12 |
| Cumulative COVID-19 since onset |
539 |
Employees with positive COVID-19 diagnosis by division:
These division numbers are reported by Human Resources weekly. This table reflects changes since the last update email.
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Division
|
New cases |
Total to date |
Returned to work |
Current active |
|
CD
|
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
| ES |
0 |
83 |
81 |
2 |
| MT |
2 |
441 |
431 |
10 |
| MTS |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
| RA |
0 |
12 |
12 |
0
|
| Total |
2 |
539 |
527 |
12
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