Credit: National Guard, via Flickr
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 2,063 new cases and 11 new deaths.
This is the third day in a row that Minnesota has reported more than 2,000 cases, as the state continues to experience another increase in the virus, despite the increased number of vaccinations.
The 11 new deaths increase the state’s death toll to 6,875 during the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 62.4% (4,286) were residents in long-term care, including four of the most recent 11 deaths.
As of April 1, the state reported that 1,770,290 people had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,129,863 people had completed their vaccine series.
Forty percent of 16-year-olds in Minnesota received at least one stroke.
MDH has a public dashboard to track the progress of the vaccine in Minnesota and you can view it here.
hospitalization
Hospitalization data are not updated at the weekend.
As of April 1, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 439, up from 438 reported Thursday.
Of those hospitalized until April 1, 112 people were in intensive care (compared to 105 were reported on Thursday) and 327 received non-ICU treatment (down from 330).
This is how hospitalizations in Minnesota have progressed over the past month.
- March 1: 251 (191 non-ICU, 60 ICU)
- March 7: 223 (177 non-ICU, 46 ICU)
- March 13: 255 (194 non-ICU, 61 ICU)
- March 20: 324 (246 non-ICU, 78 ICU)
- March 27: 356 (264 non-ICU, 92 ICU)
- April 1: 439 (327 non-ICU, 112 ICU)
Test rates and positivity
The 2,063 positive results in Saturday’s update were from 35,558 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity rate of 5.8%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the test positive rate in Minnesota over the past seven days is 6.75%.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive percentage rate (total of positives divided by total tests completed) of less than 5% for at least two weeks be required for the safe reopening of the economy. That 5% threshold is based on the total positives divided by the total tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by numbers
- Total tests: 8,338,754 (increasing from 8,303,506)
- Tested persons: 3,726,485 (from 3,717,258)
- People with at least 1 shot vaccine: 1,770,290 (of the 1,720,811)
- People who have finished. series of vaccines: 1,129,863 (of the 1,088,332)
- Positive cases: 526,267 (from 524,203)
- Deaths: 6,875 – 379 of which are “probable *” (increasing from 6,864)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 503,024 (from 501,188)
* 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.