WINONA, Minn. – Federal emergency planners have identified the two newest Winona State University dorms as possible field hospitals if COVID-19 patients press the capacity of the Winona hospital. The regional Homeland Security director, Joe Kelly, said sleeping rooms in both Kirkland and Haake dorms would become hospital rooms. The first refit step would be ripping out carpeting, he said. Kelly emphasized that the plan is a contingency and unlikely to be actuated. Other southeast Minnesota contingency sites, he said, are the Mayo Civic Center, Rochester; the Academy of the Blind, Faribault; and the Academy of the Deaf, Faribault.
