Now livetweeting the daily MN #COVID19 briefing. Walz, Malcolm, Kelly and Grove on the line. #CoronavirusMN

Walz notes that MN's special health insurance enrollment remains open through @MNsure. Deadline is April 21. If you didn't buy coverage last fall, you can fix that mistake.

Reminder: MN's tax filing day has been moved to July 15 to match up with the extended federal deadline.

Walz: Good news. U of MN has received FDA approval for new low-cost ventilator. Is desk-top sized and low cost to manufacture. Specs will be shared online.

Malcolm: Globally, 2 million+ cases, 127K deaths. US: 609K confirmed cases, and just over 26K deaths. MN: 114 new cases confirmed for total for 1809 cases. Eight new MN deaths, for total of 87 deaths.

All eight new MN deaths were long-term care residents.

197 patients in hospital, 93 in ICU. Both counts are increasing but on same pace in recent days. 940 patients released from isolation (recovered).

Malcolm: LTC facilities are a "particularly ripe" for COVID-19. Working hard with them. Seeing that infection control focus is having an impact. 108 facilities where illness is confirmed but of them, fully half have only one case, suggesting spread being limited.

Emergency Ops' Joe Kelly: Don't lose sight of threat from spring flooding. Two pieces of advice: don't drive thru floodwater. And, consider buying flood insurance, make sure you have a sewer back-up rider.

DEED's Steve Grove: 13-week extension for unemployment thru CARES Act has been implemented in MN. Applies to everyone in state who is unemployment. If interested, log into account and let state know still unemployment. 8000 MN may qualify.

464,513 unemployment apps since March 16, up about 13K from yesterday.

Daily biz shout-out: Ely's Wintergreen, shifted to making protective gear, with much of it headed to northern MN clinics.

Walz: What we're doing is working. Our social distancing has bent the curve. Public private partnerships, in PPE and testing, bearing fruit to start getting us to the next phase.

Walz: We have put the state in position where we are saving lives.

Now onto reporters' questions. Q. Should Minnesotans bring loved ones home from LTC care centers? A. We think LTC facilities working hard and in many respects, still are safest environment for aging loved ones. But important for families to have a discussion w/facilities.

More on self-employed and unemployment: Apply now, will get denied but will get you into the system and are working to get this system up and running.

Q on testing, recent numbers have dropped in MN. A. Walz said every governor has this concern. We were told at end of March everyone who wanted a test could get one. Feds took charge and took over supply chains. That was the plan but now they've given up on that to certain degree

Walz now saying there is not going to be a federal response to testing. Yet every expert has said testing is going to be a component on re-opening. I am challenging MN to break this mold. I do believe we can get to 5K/tests a day.. potentially before May 4,

Between UMN resources, private providers and Mayo Clinic, we think we can get there. (testing). Minnesota can be the one example of where this can work.

Thoroughly confused by last question from MPR, which expressed concern about MN's testing capacity. Did they not see story yesterday about Mayo's testing capacity numbers?

Malcolm: Testing is an achievable goal.

Next Q is about reliability of serologic tests. A. Some of the tests rushed on to the market are worthless. But good news is that some places like the Mayo Clinic are doing this, and should be more reliable.

Malcolm: We will benefit from being close partners with Mayo and the U on testing.

MDH's Ehresmann adds to caveats about shady serological testing results.

Q. How many diagnostic tests and serologic tests does MN need? Yesterday, you said 40K/week needed. A. Some muddled numbers (this is me talking), but sounds like way more serological tests than diagnostic tests.

Some uninformed questions today, sorry folks. Not going to relay them.

Next Q on PPE. Is more coming in? Will we have enough? A. Walz says he is feeling "more confident than he was a week ago" but still an unknown. Commissioner in charge of this says doing better and finding suppliers we can trust.