NIAID-RML
Sunday’s COVID-19 update from the Department of Health in Minnesota contains data from New Year’s Day and January. 2, and the combined total of both days contains 53 deaths and more than 2,700 new laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
There were now 5,430 deaths due to the virus during the pandemic, of which (64.4%) (3.499) came from long-term care, including 35 of the 53 reported on Sunday.
Minnesota has yet to confirm the new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Europe and other parts of the world.
The state is now providing updates on how many people have received the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. As of Dec. 27, the state said 57,017 people had been vaccinated in Minnesota, the vast majority of whom are health workers who received the Pfizer vaccine.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization figures are not updated on weekends. As of Dec. 30, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 895.
Of those admitted to the hospital, 196 were in intensive care and 699 received non-ICU treatment.
Test and positivity rates
The 2,714 positive results in the Sunday update were a total of 96,425 completed tests, resulting in a daily test positivity of 2.81%. The positives and tests are from Friday and Saturday, hence the higher numbers.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percentage positive rate (total positive divided by total completed tests) of at least two weeks below 5% is needed to safely reopen the economy. The 5% threshold is based on total positive share through total tests.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positive rate over the past seven days is 5.62%, while Minnesota is no longer one of the states with a 7-day positive rate of less than 5%, which last week dropped some days scored the point.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by Numbers
- Total tests: 5,713,240 (from 5616,567)
- People tested: 3,017,309 (compared to 2,982,853)
- Positive cases: 420,544 (from 41,7832)
- Deaths: 5,430 – 182 of which “probably *” (compared to 5,377)
- Active cases: 11,695 (positive people are deducted from isolation and deaths)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 403,419 (from 398,199)
- Total people vaccinated: 57,017 (no change from 57,017)
* 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.