At his COVID-19 pandemic briefing on Friday, Governor Doug Burgum announced that North Dakota is ready to move to its next phase of reopening its economy.
Burgum says North Dakota's risk level has moved from the "yellow" or "moderate" level to "green" or "low." He says this decision was made after careful consideration of current data by many different sectors . Burgum says North Dakota has a very high per capita testing rate - 9 percent of the state's total population has been tested for COVID-19, and the testing rate is third in the country. He also says the state's hospital capacity remains high, while the rate of active confirmed cases continues to trend downward.
"To be able to do this - I again just want to say thank you to the people of North Dakota because it's your actions, your individual responsibility, which has produced the great data. The low numbers, the low cases, the low utilization of hospital, the low spread, the fast responses, the collaboration - all of that is what's happened here, again, and when you talk about North Dakota Smart - North Dakota has been very smart to date. And that goes back to all of you."
Burgum says this means businesses can move forward to their next phase of reopening according to the North Dakota Smart Restart Guidelines, which are listed online by specific industry.
Those guidelines are at www.ndresponse.gov.
