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 newly reported deaths bring the state’s total over the course of the pandemic to 6,343. Of those deaths, 63% (3,996) were long-term care residents, including 13 of the 24 reported Thursday.
One of the newly reported deaths was a person aged 35-39 from Anoka County. It’s the 26th death of someone in that age bracket. On Wednesday, the state reported the second COVID-related death of a child under 10 in Minnesota.
Through February 9, the state reported that 599,218 people received at least 1 dose of the a COVID-19 vaccine, while 177,239 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.
Two new variants of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Minnesota, including the first known case of the P.1 variant in Brazil in the United States. That case involves a Minnesota man who has 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
Through February 10, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 320. Of those admitted to the hospital, 78 were in intensive care and 242 received non-ICU treatment.
Statewide, 174 manned IC beds were available. During the November surge, 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 907 positive results in Thursday’s update came from a total of 43,203 tests completed, creating a daily test positivity of 2.1%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the test positivity rate in Minnesota in the past seven days is 3.46%, 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: 6,871,077 (from 6,828,887)
- People tested: 3,337,790 (higher than 3,327,336)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 599,218 (from 583,602)
- People with 2 vaccination shots: 177,239 (from 168,495)
- Positive cases: 470,803 (from 469.905)
- Deaths: 6,343 – 262 of which “likely *” (up from 6,319)
- Patients who no longer require isolation: 456,849 (from 456,244)
* 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.