Credit: Guarda Nacional, via Flickr
Saturday’s Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) COVID update includes 2,063 new cases and 11 new deaths.
It is the third consecutive day that Minnesota has recorded more than 2,000 cases, while the state continues to experience another increase in the virus, despite the increasing number of vaccinations.
The 11 new deaths increase the death toll in the state to 6,875 during the course of the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 62.4% (4,286) were residents of long-term care facilities, including four of the last 11 deaths.
As of April 1, the state reported that 1,770,290 people had received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,129,863 people completed their vaccination series.
Forty percent of Minnesota residents over the age of 16 received at least one injection.
MDH has a public panel to monitor the progress of the vaccine in Minnesota, and you can view it here.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization data is not updated on weekends.
As of April 1, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 439, up from 438 reported on Thursday.
Of those hospitalized by April 1, 112 people were in intensive care (against 105 reported on Thursday) and 327 were receiving treatment outside the ICU (against 330).
This is how hospital admissions in Minnesota progressed in the past month.
- March 1: 251 (191 outside the ICU, 60 ICUs)
- March 7: 223 (177 out of the ICU, 46 in the ICU)
- March 13: 255 (194 outside the ICU, 61 ICU)
- March 20: 324 (246 outside the ICU, 78 ICU)
- March 27: 356 (264 outside the ICU, 92 ICUs)
- April 1: 439 (327 non-ICU, 112 ICU)
Test rates and positivity
The 2,063 positive results in Saturday’s update were 35,558 tests completed, creating a 5.8% daily test positivity rate.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate for the past seven days is 6.75%.
The World Health Organization recommends 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.
Coronavirus in Minnesota in numbers
- Total tests: 8,338,754 (above 8,303,506)
- People tested: 3,726,485 (from 3,717,258)
- People with at least 1 vaccine injection: 1,770,290 (over 1,720,811)
- People who have completed. vaccine series: 1,129,863 (over 1,088,332)
- Positive cases: 526,267 (above 524,203)
- Deaths: 6,875 – 379 of which are “probable *” (over 6,864)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 503,024 (over 501,188)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after the test was positive using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is considered less accurate than the most common PCR test.