Credit: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit via Flickr
Sunday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) contains 901 new cases and 10 new deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state to 6,299 in the course of the pandemic. Of the deaths, 63% (3,971) were residents of long-term care, including 5 of the ten reported on Sunday.
As of February 5, the state reported that 554,102 people had received at least 1 dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 156,638 people had completed both doses of vaccination 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 numbers are not updated on weekends.
Test and positivity rates
The 901 positive results in Sunday’s update were a total of 27,922 completed tests, resulting in a daily test positivity rate of 3.22%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positivity rate over the past seven days is 3.53%, 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: 6,780,024 (higher than 6,751,744)
- People tested: 3,314,427 (from 3,305,989)
- People shot with at least 1 vaccination: 554,102 (higher than 525,236)
- People with 2 vaccine shots: 156,638 (compared to 147,321)
- Positive cases: 468,118 (higher than 467,217)
- Deaths: 6,299 – 261 of which “is probably *” (compared to 6 289)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 453,225 (from 452,183)
* 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.