A decision on whether to extend the "Stay at Home" order for Minnesota, which is set to expire May 4, will likely be made by Gov. Tim Walz sometime next week.

"It is my hope that we get some lead time, certainly to the middle of next week, we're going to have to have some thoughts," said Walz during a Friday media briefing about the state's response to the coronavirus crisis.

It's clear at this point that bars, restaurants, malls and other businesses that offer unpredictable social distancing settings are still a ways away from being able to open regularly, as evidenced by the social setting dials the governor unveiled Thursday.

"I think we're going to look at the data and see what are testing starts to show. It's at a time when we are climbing – the peak is probably later into May – but it looks like we're climbing," said Walz.

Testing and positive test results hit 24-hour highs both Thursday and Friday, and 100 COVID-19 patients have died in the past seven days with a total of 221 deaths since the outbreak began in March.

"My pledge to Minnesotans is to continue to transparently show how we're thinking through these things and then try to give as much lead time as possible," Walz added.

"I think you can expect sometime middle of next week that we'll be making that decision."

Regardless of the order being extended beyond May 4 or not, next Monday (April 27) marks the day when approximately 20,000 non-customer-facing businesses in Minnesota will be allowed to return to work so long as social distancing is maintained along with cleaning and disinfecting strategies in place.

That will lead to 80,000 to 100,000 Minnesotans returning to work.

Around 550,000 Minnesotans have filed for unemployment since March 16, according to the Department of Employment and Economics.