Credit: April Ellers, Minneapolis VA Health Care System
Saturday’s Minnesota Department of Health’s COVID update includes 37 new deaths and more than 1,400 new cases.
The newly reported deaths bring the state to 5,887 during the course of the pandemic, of which (63.8%) (3,756) were residents of long-term care, including 22 of the 37 reported on Saturday.
Minnesota last Saturday confirmed the first five cases of the British mutant variant of COVID-19, with residents in four Twin Cities counties tested positive for the B.1.1.7. variant after becoming ill between 16 and 31 December.
No further cases of the new strain have been confirmed, but health officials believe the variant is widespread in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, the state reported that as of January 13, 174 110 people had received at least 1 dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 32,131 people had completed both doses of vaccine required for the full effect of the vaccines.
The Department of Health has launched a public dashboard to track the distribution of vaccines in Minnesota, and you can see it here.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization data are not updated on weekends.
As of January 14, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 612, which is the lowest number of COVID admissions reported since October 25 (584).
Of those admitted to the hospital, 125 (compared to 131 the previous day) were in intensive care, and 487 (less than 514) received non-ICU treatment.
Overall, there were 148 ICU beds with crew 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 1,485 positive results in Saturday’s update were a total of 30,774 completed tests, resulting in a daily test positivity rate of 4.82%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positivity rate over the past seven days is 5.52%.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percentage of positive rate (total positive divided by total completed tests) be needed for at least two weeks below 5% to safely reopen the economy. The 5% threshold is based on total positive share through total tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by Numbers
- Total tests: 6,121,001 (from 6,090,114)
- People tested: 3,134,557 (higher than 3,124,903)
- Positive cases: 445,047 (higher than 443,562)
- Deaths: 5887 – 214 of which “probably *” (as against 5 850)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 425,253 (versus 422,289)
* 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.