Credit: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit via Flickr
Sunday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 901 new cases and 10 new deaths.
The newly reported deaths bring the state’s total over the course of the pandemic to 6,299. Of those deaths, 63% (3,971) were long-term care residents, including 5 of 10 reported Sunday.
Through February 5, the state reported that 554,102 people received at least 1 dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, while 156,638 people completed both doses of vaccine necessary 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 admissions are not updated on weekends.
Test and positivity rates
The 901 positive results in Sunday’s update were from a total of 27,922 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity of 3.22%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the positivity rate in Minnesota in the past seven days is 3.53%, 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: 6,780,024 (from 6,751,744)
- People tested: 3,314,427 (from 3,305,989)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 554,102 (from 525,236)
- People with 2 vaccination shots: 156,638 (from 147,321)
- Positive cases: 468,118 (from 467,217)
- Deaths: 6,299 – 261 of which “likely *” (up from 6,289)
- Patients who no longer require isolation: 453,225 (from 452,183)
* 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.