Covid frontline workers find relief through government payment

More than 1 million Minnesota frontline workers will get bonus payments of nearly $500 starting this week. This is a thank-you gift from the state that arrives more than two years after the COVID-19 pandemic started. According to state officials approximately over 1 million people will get $487.45 each. According to reports, the state will start sending out the payments on Wednesday. The pandemic took place a little over two years ago, and although the payment is late and to some even small, many workers are happy.

“I will say I think that Minnesota, like the counties, did a great job with COVID and supplying supports and ways for families and just their communities. And I couldn’t have done it without Saint Louis County public health, so I’m grateful for the check,” says Madisen Wagner a support staff and Isolation Quarantine Supervisor for Chum.

Wagner’s schedule was quite the brutal one. She was a frontline worker that worked at the height of the pandemic. She worked long days and late nights making sure homeless populations got the help they needed during that trying time.

“We have the isolation and quarantine that started out at the Radisson Hotel using their overload rooms. And with that, it was the homeless population in Saint Louis County. They would come and have a place to stay for that ten day to 14 day period. We supply them with breakfast, lunch, dinner, some clothing, some place to shower, and just a place to really isolate, to slow down the spread rate in our shelters. And just so people didn’t have to stay in their car for ten days trying to avoid going to the store, going to the gas station and exposing those people. So I just made sure folks had a safe place to quarantine.”

  According to reports the state will start sending out the payments on Wednesday. Everyone who applied will get an email between Monday and Wednesday about their final status.