Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Monday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 555 new cases and one new death.
The newly reported death brings the state total to 6,433 during the pandemic. Of these deaths, 62.7% (4,038) were residents of long-term care, including only the death reported on Monday.
As of Feb. 20, the state reported that 759,747 people received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 356,911 people completed both doses of the vaccine that are needed for the maximum effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public dashboard to track the progress of the vaccine in Minnesota and you can view it here.
Two new variants of coronavirus have been confirmed in Minnesota, including what was the first known case of the Brazil P.1 variant in the United States. This case involves a Minnesota man who traveled to Brazil. There are 8 confirmed cases of variant B.1.1.7. It is believed that both new strains are more transmissible.
hospitalization
As of Feb. 21, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 235 – down from 282 on Thursday.
Of those hospitalized, 48 were in intensive care – down from 59 on Thursday – and 187 received non-ICU treatment.
Test rates and positivity
The 555 positive results in Monday’s update were from a total of 17,666 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 3.14%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the test positivity rate in Minnesota over the past seven days is 3.25%. It is about the same rate that Minnesota had in September, before an increase in cases increased to over 15% in November.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive percentage rate (total positive divided by the total number of tests completed) of less than 5% for at least two weeks be needed to safely reopen the economy. That 5% threshold is based on the total positives divided by the total tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by numbers
- Total tests: 7,178,713 (from 7,161,046)
- Tested persons: 3,422,813 (from 3,417,125)
- People with at least 1 shot vaccine: 759,747 (of the 754,602)
- People with 2 vaccines: 356,911 (of the 341,332)
- Positive cases: 479,591 (from 479,036)
- Deaths: 6,433 – 270 of which are “probable *” (increasing from 6,432)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 466,311 (from 465,382)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after a positive test using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is thought to be less accurate than the more common PCR test.