Mayo clinic
The Minnesota Department of Health’s Sunday coronavirus update is a combination of results collected from December 25-26, and reveals 40 more deaths and more than 2,500 additional laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.
5,147 deaths from the virus have already occurred during the pandemic, of which 64.7% (3,332) came from long-term care, including 27 of the 40 reported on Sunday.
The positive news is that the test’s positive rate continues to drop and Minnesota has dropped to just over 20,000 active cases, which is well below the peak of more than 50,000 active cases in mid-November.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization numbers are not updated on weekends.
As of December 23, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 1,048. This is less than 1,060 hospitalized on Tuesday.
Of those hospitalized, 238 were in intensive care and 810 were being treated outside the ICU.
Test rates and positivity
The 2,534 positive results in Sunday’s update were a total of 87,990 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity rate of 2.88%, which is a step in the right direction in terms of how widespread the virus may be in Minnesota .
The World Health Organization recommended in May that a percentage rate of positivity (total positives divided by the total of completed tests) of less than 5% for at least two weeks is necessary to reopen the economy safely. This limit of 5% is based on the total of positives divided by the total of tests.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate for the past seven days is 5.18%. There are only four states in the U.S. below a 5% test positivity rate on a 7-day moving average, and Minnesota may soon become fifth if the current trend continues.
Coronavirus in Minnesota in numbers
- Total tests: 5,480,439 (over 5,392,411)
- People tested: 2,947,634 (over 2,918,243)
- Positive cases: 409,061 (over 406,545)
- Deaths: 5,107 – 154 of which are “probable *” (above 5,107)
- Active cases: 20,142 (below 23,840)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 388,919 (over 382,705)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after a positive test using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is considered less accurate than the most common PCR test.