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Gov. Tim Walz’s announcement Thursday night that the stay-at-home order would be allowed to expire Sunday night was a bit of welcome news in the time of COVID-19.

This announcement means that retail businesses have the green light to open on a limited basis with a restriction on capacity limited to 10 or fewer people.

At the same time, those places that attract larger crowds, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters and bowling alleys, are still restricted from opening.

“This is either going to work or not work,” Walz said Wednesday night. “People are either going to stay out of the hospital or get in it.”

While there are still restrictions on establishments like bars and restaurants, Walz instructed state agencies to develop plans for a limited reopening starting June 1.

Mower County Board of Commissioners Chair Jeff Baldus watched the governor’s press conference and said this is a positive step toward helping businesses get up and going again.

“I’m excited to see there is some easing and some directives so we can get some local businesses open,” Baldus said. “This is a huge piece of getting the economy up and running again.”

“Local businesses, especially the small ones, are really struggling,” he added. “This is a good faith effort to let them get open.”

So far, Baldus said that Mower County has been doing a good job of maintaining social distancing in order to help keep the virus from spreading, pointing out that the county went over a week without a new case.

Since then however, cases have started to tick upward again, warning that continued caution is still necessary.

“I think the citizens of Mower County have done a fantastic job,” Baldus said. “We went a full week of no cases. As of late we have had a number of cases click back up. It’s a little concerning, but we have to understand there is more testing and a lot of them are linked to each other. Overall Mower County has done a great job.”

“Is it enough? That’s the big question,” Baldus continued. “Is it enough? Have we gone long enough?”

The goal of Walz, as well as state and local officials, is to ease into a reopening rather than simply open everything up and risk a spike in cases.

To that end, local officials like Amy Lammey, Mower County emergency management coordinator, are appreciative of a more gradual approach of opening the state back up.

“I think the governor has a very good plan to ease Minnesota to be opened,” she said. “His plan has given us the opportunity to get cleaning supplies amped up for those isolated or quarantined.”

Lammey understands that there are still many more that can’t go back to work and realizes they are frustrated, but at the same time she urges people to hang in there as state and local officials work at bringing things back online.

“Give it time; things are going to reopen,” she said. “The governor has given good dates, like Monday, for non-essential businesses to open. The next phase will be to reopen bars and businesses that have more contact. He’s giving them time to have their plans ready.”

Austin City Administrator Craig Clark expressed gratitude for Walz’s decision.

“We appreciate the efforts Gov. Walz is working on to balance protecting public health and the interests of our main street businesses,” he said.

“COVID- 19 required responses which have been difficult for those impacted businesses and in some instances seemed counterintuitive,” he added, referring to instances where big box retailers were open and busy while a small retailer that had more moderate traffic was forced to close. “With the Governor opening up retail and outlining the ongoing steps for the final businesses to open, they can at least plan effectively for their returning employees and ordering inventory as necessary. We’re hopeful as a state we will continue to see a decline in COVID cases so our economy can begin to rebound.”

In the meantime, Clark said the city will develop a new COVID-19 plan as restrictions are relaxed.

“It is still critical that we work to ensure the continued protection of those who are at risk and be sensitive to the prevention recommendations now more than ever as interactions increase,” he said. “ Any spread can obviously have significant impacts on employees and people’s willingness to patronize businesses if proper prevention efforts are not practiced by all residents going forward.”

— Michael Stoll and Eric Johnson contributed to this story