Credit: April Ellers, Minneapolis VA Health Care System
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health includes 37 new deaths and more than 1,400 new cases.
The newly reported deaths bring the state’s total over the course of the pandemic to 5,887, of which (63.8%) (3,756) were long-term care residents, including 22 of the 37 reported Saturday.
Minnesota last Saturday confirmed the first five cases of the UK-based mutant variant of COVID-19, with residents of four Twin Cities counties testing positive for B.1.1.7. variant after falling ill between December 16-31.
No further cases of the new species have been confirmed, but health officials believe the variant is widely circulating in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, the state reported that through January 13, 174,110 people have received at least 1 dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 32,131 people have completed both doses of vaccine necessary for the full effect of the vaccines.
The health department has launched a public dashboard to track vaccine distribution in Minnesota, and you can watch it here.
Hospital admissions
Hospital admission data is not updated on weekends.
Through January 14, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 612, the lowest number of COVID admissions since October 25 (584).
Of those hospitalized, 125 (versus 131 the day before) were in intensive care and 487 (versus 514) received non-ICU treatment.
Statewide there were 148 manned IC beds 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 1,485 positive results in Saturday’s update came from a total of 30,774 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity rate of 4.82%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota positivity rate in the past seven days is 5.52%.
The World Health Organization recommends that a positive rate (total positive 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: 6,121,001 (from 6,090,114)
- People tested: 3,134,557 (from 3,124,903)
- Positive cases: 445,047 (from 443,562)
- Deaths: 5,887 – 214 of which “likely *” (up from 5,850)
- Patients who no longer require isolation: 425,253 (from 422,289)
* 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.