Copy shortlink: Gov. Tim Walz met with business leaders Friday to discuss further easing of COVID-19 restrictions and dangled the prospect of a "normal" Minnesota State Fair this summer if pandemic progress continues. The governor commended Minnesotans for a vaccine uptake rate that "out-vaccinated the surge" of viral activity over the past month and kept hospitals from being overrun. While global concerns of COVID-19, especially the outbreak in India, could result in new viral variants presenting new threats, Walz said Minnesota is on pace for a promising summer. "The touchstone place is [the] State Fair," Walz said. "Everything looks to me on the horizon, and where the vaccine is going and the way that the virus is responding, that that should be a pretty-close-to-normal event."