Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Tuesday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 500 new cases and one new death.
The newly reported death brings the state’s total to 6,434 over the course of the pandemic. It is the second consecutive day that a single death has been reported.
Of the total deaths, 62.7% (4,038) were long-term care residents.
Through February 21, the state reported that 762,089 people received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 362,156 people completed both doses of the vaccine necessary for the maximum effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can watch it here.
Hospital admissions
Through February 22, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 269, compared to 235 on Sunday.
Of those hospitalized, 54 were in intensive care and 215 received non-ICU treatment.
Test and positivity rates
The 500 positive results in Tuesday’s update came from just 9,498 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity of 5.26%. However, the data usually reported on Tuesdays is known for differing results compared to the days before and after.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positivity rate in the past seven days is 3.24%. It’s about the same percentage that Minnesota had in September, before a rise in the number of cases pushed the rate above 15% in November.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive rate (total number of positives divided by total tests completed) of less than 5% for at least two weeks is required to safely reopen the economy. That 5% threshold is based on the total number of positives divided by the total number of tests.
Coronavirus in Minnesota in numbers
- Total number of tests: 7,187,985 (up from 7,178,713)
- People tested: 3,425,265 (higher than 3,422,813)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 762,089 (from 759,747)
- People with 2 vaccination shots: 362,156 (from 356,911)
- Positive cases: 480,091 (from 479,591)
- Deaths: 6434 – 270 of which “probably *” (from 6433)
- Patients who no longer require isolation: 467,147 (higher than 466,311)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after a positive test using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is believed to be less accurate than the more common PCR test.