On January 13, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson announced a city-wide mask mandate would be implemented in Duluth. That initial 30-day mandate went into effect on Friday, January 21.

This week, the City of Cloquet declared an emergency and also implemented a mask mandate, which is initially in effect through February 18, 2022. As COVID-19 continues its quick spread across the Northland, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has approved a mask mandate of their own.

The formal announcement regarding their mask mandate was shared January 20 on their official Facebook page:

The Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee approved a mask mandate for the next 30 days at:
Black Bear Casino Resort
Fond-du-Luth Casino
Fond du Lac Gas & Grocery (mandate in effect at 7:00 a.m.)
Effective Friday, January 21st at 8:00 a.m.
Please continue to do the following to help decrease the spread of COVID:
* Get vaccinated and boosted
* Wear a mask
* Stay home when sick
* Get tested for COVID as needed
Chi-miigwech for your cooperation.

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The mandate, which begins at 8:00 a.m. on January 21, 2022, is initially set to last 30 days, which would have it expire on February 18, 2022. The hope from health officials is that the peak of the current COVID-19 outbreak will have passed by then and we will finally see a decline in positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Duluth’s Essentia Health and St. Luke’s Hospital have both been outspoken in their support of Northland mask mandates, stressing that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm health care resources in our community.

They pointed out the highly transmissible omicron variant is spreading across our region, threatening to once again shut down or significantly impact many aspects of our daily lives, and wearing a mask in public is great tool to help mitigate the negative effects as they reduce the transmission of respiratory droplets which helps protect yourself and those around you.

The overwhelming majority of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated, so getting the vaccine is remains the recommendation of health officials as it can help prevent severe effects from the virus. Also, if 's been 6 months or more since becoming vaccinated, they recommend getting the booster, which is also readily available in the Northland.

Answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions

Vaccinations for COVID-19 began being administered in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2020. The quick rollout came a little more than a year after the virus was first identified in November 2019. The impressive speed with which vaccines were developed has also left a lot of people with a lot of questions. The questions range from the practical—how will I get vaccinated?—to the scientific—how do these vaccines even work?

Keep reading to discover answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions.

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.
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