Credit: Noor Joonas / Central Health Laboratory via Flickr
Monday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) contains 611 new cases and two deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state to 6,379 in the course of the pandemic. Of the deaths, 62.8% (4,016) were residents of long-term care.
As of February 13, the state reported that 675,329 people had received at least 1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 238,104 people had completed both doses of vaccine required for the maximum 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 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
The hospitalization data will not be updated over the weekend and had to be updated on Monday at the time of this writing.
As of Feb. 11, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 326 – a slight increase from 320 the previous day. Of those admitted to the hospital, 73 were in intensive care (less than 78) and 253 received non-ICU treatment (versus 242).
Across the country, there were 161 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 figures
The 611 positive results in Monday’s update were from a total of 18,165 completed tests, which created a daily test positivity rate of 3.36%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s test positivity rate over the past seven days is 3.18%, making it one of the lowest rates in the country.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive rate percentage (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: 6,990,085 (from 6,971,879)
- People tested: 3 371 276 (from 3,365,599)
- People shot with at least 1 vaccination: 675,329 (from 661,187)
- People with 2 vaccine shots: 238,104 (higher than 227,551)
- Positive cases: 474,169 (from 473 567)
- Deaths: 6 378 – 265 of these are “probably *” (compared to 6 376)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 460 537 (from 459 525)
* 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.