Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) contains 1,030 new cases and 17 new deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state to 6,299 in the course of the pandemic. Of the deaths, 63.3% (3,960) were residents of long-term care, including seven of the 17 reported on Saturday.
As of February 4, the state reported that 525,236 people had received at least 1 dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 147,321 people had completed both doses of vaccine required for the full effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can see it here.
Two new variants of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Minnesota, including what was the first known case of the Brazil P.1 variant in the United States. The case involves a Minnesotan who recently traveled to Brazil. There are 8 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 variant. Both new strains are believed to be more transmissible.
Hospitalizations
Hospital data are not updated on weekends.
As of Feb. 4, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 362. Of those admitted to the hospital, 82 were in intensive care and 280 received non-ICU treatment.
In total, there were 150 crew ICU beds available. During the November boom, the state had fewer than 100 ICU beds. The number of available beds depends on the number of available staff, and the total is therefore constantly changing.
Test and positivity rates
The 1,030 positive results in Saturday’s update were a total of 34,448 completed tests, resulting in a daily test positivity rate of 2.99%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positivity rate over the past seven days is 3.49%, making it one of the lowest rates in the country.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percentage positive rate (total positive divided by total completed tests) of less than 5% is required for at least two weeks to safely reopen the economy. The 5% threshold is based on total positives divided by total tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by Numbers
- Total tests: 6 751 744 (from 6,717,419)
- People tested: 3,305,989 (from 3,296,876)
- People shot with at least 1 vaccination: 525 236 (compared to 497 843)
- People with 2 vaccine shots: 147,321 (higher than 138,212)
- Positive cases: 467,217 (from 466,224)
- Deaths: 6,289 – 261 of which “is probably *” (compared to 6 273)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 452,183 (from 450,924)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after testing positive using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is thought to be less accurate than the more common PCR test.