Credit: Navy Medicine via Flickr
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 1,030 new cases and 17 new deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state’s total to 6,290 over the course of the pandemic. Of those deaths, 63.3% (3,960) were long-term care residents, including seven of the 17 reported Saturday.
Through February 4, the state reported that 525,236 people received at least 1 dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 147,321 people completed both doses of the vaccine required for the full effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can watch it here.
Two new variants of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Minnesota, including the first known case of variant P.1 in Brazil in the United States. The case involves a Minnesota man who recently traveled to Brazil. There are 8 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 variant. Both new strains are believed to be more transferable.
Hospital admissions
Hospital information is not updated on weekends.
Through February 4, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 362. Of those admitted to the hospital, 82 were in intensive care and 280 received non-ICU treatment.
Statewide 150 staffed IC beds were available. At its peak in November, the state had fewer than 100 staffed IC beds available. The number of available beds depends on the number of available staff, so the totals are constantly changing.
Test and positivity rates
The 1,030 positive results in Saturday’s update came from a total of 34,448 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity of 2.99%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s positivity rate in the past seven days is 3.49%, making it one of the lowest in the country.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive rate (total 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: 6,751,744 (from 6,717,419)
- People tested: 3,305,989 (from 3,296,876)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 525,236 (from 497,843)
- People with 2 vaccination shots: 147,321 (compared to 138,212)
- Positive cases: 467,217 (from 466,224)
- Deaths: 6,289 – 261 of which “likely *” (up from 6,273)
- Patients who no longer require isolation: 452,183 (from 450,924)
* 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.