Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Thursday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 907 new cases and a total of 24 deaths.
The recently reported deaths bring the state’s total to 6,343 during the pandemic. Of those deaths, 63 percent (3,996) were long-term care residents, including 13 of 24 reported on Thursday.
One of the recently reported deaths was a 35-39-year-old person from Anoka County. It is the 26th death of someone in this age group. On Wednesday, the state reported the second COVID-related death of a child under the age of 10 in Minnesota.
As of Feb. 9, the state reported that 599,218 people received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 177,239 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. Both new strains are thought to be more transmissible.
hospitalization
As of Feb. 10, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 320. Of those hospitalized, 78 were in intensive care and 242 were receiving treatment that was not in the ICU.
Statewide, 174 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 907 positive results in Thursday’s update were from a total of 43,203 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 2.1%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the test positivity rate in Minnesota in the last seven days is 3.46%, making it one of the lowest rates in the country.
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: 6,871,077 (from 6,828,887)
- Tested persons: 3,337,790 (from 3,327,336)
- People with at least 1 shot vaccine: 599,218 (of the 583,602)
- People with 2 vaccines: 177,239 (out of 168,495)
- Positive cases: 470,803 (from 469,905)
- Deaths: 6,343 – 262 of which are “probable *” (increasing from 6,319)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 456,849 (from 456,244)
* 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.