Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Saturday’s Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) COVID update includes 870 new cases and 11 deaths.
The recently reported deaths bring the state total to 6,423 during the course of the pandemic. Of these deaths, 62.8% (4,034) were residents of long-term care facilities, including six of the 11 reported on Saturday.
As of February 17, the state reported that 742,760 people had received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 315,284 people completed the two doses of the vaccine necessary for the maximum effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public panel to monitor the progress of the vaccine in Minnesota, and you can view it here.
Two new variants of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Minnesota, including one that was the first known case of the Brazil P.1 variant in the United States. This case involves a Minnesotan who traveled to Brazil. There are 8 confirmed cases of variant B.1.1.7. The two new strains are believed to be more transmissible.
Hospitalizations
Hospital data is not updated on weekends.
As of February 17, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 282 – the lowest since September 20 (248). Of those hospitalized, 59 were in intensive care and 223 were being treated outside the ICU.
For contextual purposes, Minnesota peaked at 1,840 COVID hospitalizations in late November.
Across the state, there were 155 ICU beds available. During the November surge, the state had less than 100 ICU beds available. The number of beds available depends on the number of employees available, so the totals change constantly.
Test rates and positivity
The 870 positive results in Saturday’s update were a total of 32,110 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity rate of 2.7%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate for the past seven days is 3.29%. It is almost the same rate that Minnesota had in September, before a sudden increase in cases raised the rate to more than 15% in November.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percentage rate of positivity (total positives divided by total tests completed) below 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: 7,132,441 (above 7,100,497)
- People tested: 3,406,347 (over 3,398,492)
- People with at least 1 vaccine injection: 742,760 (over 728,081)
- People with 2 vaccines: 315,284 (over 286,543)
- Positive cases: 478,157 (over 477,287)
- Deaths: 6,423 – 270 of which are “probable *” (above 6,412)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 464,504 (out of 463,454)
* 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.