Credit: the national guard via Flickr
Wednesday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) contains 783 new cases and ten deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state to 6,390 during the course of the pandemic. Of the deaths, 62.8% (4,019) were residents of long-term care, including three of the ten reported on Wednesday.
As of February 14, the state reported that 695,629 people had received at least 1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 246,431 people had completed both doses of vaccination 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
As of Feb. 16, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 314 – the lowest since Sept. 24. Of those admitted to the hospital, 54 were in intensive care and 260 received non-ICU treatment.
Overall, there were 179 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 783 positive results in Wednesday’s update were from a total of 22,160 completed tests, resulting in a daily test positivity of 3.53%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s test positivity rate over the past seven days is 3.17%. That’s about the same rate as Minnesota had in September before an increase in cases raised the rate to above 15% in November.
Credit: Johns Hopkins University
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive rate (total positive divided by total completed tests) of at least two weeks of below 5% is needed to safely reopen the economy. The 5% threshold is based on total positives divided by total tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by Numbers
- Total tests: 7,021,209 (from 6,999,322)
- People tested: 3 378 669 (from 3 373 632)
- People shot with at least 1 vaccination: 695,629 (compared to 686,210)
- People with 2 vaccine shots: 246,431 (from 240,027)
- Positive cases: 475 379 (from 474 621)
- Deaths: 6,390 – 266 of them are “probably *” (compared to 6,380)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 462,502 (higher than 461,406)
* 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.