Just before midnight last night an agreement was struck. The House and Senate have now both voted to end the peacetime emergency. The emergency powers are over after 471 days. It first began with a 2 week shut down and quarantine, that rolled into a long year of heartbreaking deaths, watching COVID numbers rise and fall and a looming sense of uncertainty as we chartered unnavigated waters through the pandemic. Today we see the light at the end of that tunnel. 47% of Minnesota’s population is fully vaccinated, with over twice as many partially vaccinated A total of 325 million vaccines have been administered in record time. Governor Walz will officially end the emergency powers Thursday, July 1st, one month earlier than his earlier proposal. Walz negotiated with the federal government to continue to get $45 million a month for emergency food expenses.