https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/minnesota-halts-covid-19-study-reports-intimidation-73247079Minnesota officials have stopped a COVID-19 testing study after multiple reports that state and federal public health workers were greeted by racial and ethnic slurs as they went door-to-door.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled federal surveyors out of Minnesota this week after they experienced verbal abuse and intimidation. In Eitzen, along the Iowa border, one survey team was boxed in by two cars and threatened by three men, including one with a gun.
“The team felt the intent was clearly to intimidate and scare them,” said Stephanie Yendell, who supervised Minnesota’s role in the survey. “Unfortunately that wasn’t the only incident.”
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Yendell said the teams that included people of color reported more incidents than teams with only white people. “We had a Latina team member who said she’d been called a particular epithet more times in the last week than in her entire life," she said.
Incidents occurred mostly in central and southern Minnesota — rural areas where there has been more resentment over COVID-19 restrictions.
