Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 870 new cases and 11 deaths.
The recently reported deaths bring the state total to 6,423 during the pandemic. Of those deaths, 62.8% (4,034) were long-term care residents, including six of the 11 reported on Saturday.
As of Feb. 17, the state reported that 742,760 people received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 315,284 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
Hospital data is not updated over the weekend.
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 received non-ICU treatment.
For the context, Minnesota reached a peak of 1,840 COVID hospitalizations at the end of November.
Statewide, 155 beds were available for the ICU. During the November increase, the state had less than 100 intensive care beds available. The number of beds available depends on the number of staff available, so the total is constantly changing.
Test rates and positivity
The 870 positive results from Saturday’s update come from a total of 32,110 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 2.7%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the test positive rate in Minnesota over the past seven days is 3.29%. 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 of positives divided by total tests completed) of less than 5% for at least two weeks be needed to safely reopen the economy.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by numbers
- Total tests: 7,132,441 (out of 7,100,497)
- Tested persons: 3,406,347 (of the 3,398,492)
- People with at least 1 shot vaccine: 742,760 (of the 728,081)
- People with 2 vaccines: 315,284 (out of 286,543)
- Positive cases: 478,157 (of the 477,287)
- Deaths: 6,423 – 270 of which are “probable *” (increasing from 6,412)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 464,504 (of 463,454)
* 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.