Dakota Times

With rapidly rising COVID-19 cases across the country, Dakota County is passing the social distancing tests with flying colors, according to a new tool reported by Patch. 

Developed and launched last week by Unacast, a New York City and Norway-based company that analyzes human mobility data, statistics show that Dakota County ranks among the top of the nation in its efforts to combat the coronavirus.

According to Unacast's Social Distancing Scoreboard, Dakota County received an overall grade of A. The scoreboard has also seen a 44% decrease in distance traveled by people since the coronavirus outbreak was first confirmed in the United States. Overall, the state of Minnesota also received an A letter grade.

Unacast used anonymous real-time location data from tens of millions of mobile phones to reach their calculations. 

States topping the list according to scoreboard grade are: Washington, D.C., Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The bottom five states on the list are Oregon, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. 

The Minnesota Senate also passed its third COVID-19 response bill, allocating an additional $331 million to help the state’s citizens combat the pandemic.

The bill establishes a dedicated COVID-19 Minnesota Fund that will be used by Gov. Tim Walz in an effort to keep Minnesotans safe during this emergency. According to an MNSRC release, the package includes funding for childcare providers, college students, small businesses, veterans, homeless shelters and food shelters.

The first two COVID-19 bills allocated $221 million in funding for medical needs, with the third bringing the total to $552 million.

“I want to assure Minnesotans we are working together to keep people safe from the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease,” Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-East Gull Lake) said in a statement. “There are many ways that state government can act to protect Minnesotans’ lives and their livelihood, and this is just the first step to taking care of the most important needs.”

As of March 30, the nationwide numbers have grown to over 164,000 confirmed cases and 3,166 deaths, according to reports. The United States now faces the most confirmed cases in the world.