The National Guard via Flickr
Wednesday’s COVID-19 update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 1,611 new cases and 13 new deaths.
The new deaths raise the state’s death toll to 7,044 over the course of the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 61.5% (4,339) were long-term care residents.
Through April 19, the state reported that 2,324,241 people received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,648,311 people completed their vaccine series.
Fifty-two percent of minnesotans ages 16 and older received at least one injection, while 85.5% of the population 65 and older had at least one dose of a vaccine. In all, 41.8% of the state’s population has had at least one dose.
MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can watch it here.
Hospital admissions
Through April 20, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 676, which is lower than the 686 reported Monday.
Of those hospitalized, 193 people were in intensive care (no change from 193 reported Tuesday) and 483 received non-ICU treatment (up from 493).
Here’s how Minnesota hospital admissions have progressed since March 7.
- March 7: 223 (177 non-ICU, 46 ICU)
- March 13: 255 (194 non-ICU, 61 ICU)
- March 20: 324 (246 non-ICU, 78 ICU)
- March 27: 356 (264 non-ICU, 92 ICU)
- Apr. 2: 439 (337 non-ICU, 112 ICU)
- Apr. 8: 595 (461 non-ICU, 134 ICU)
- Apr. 14: 699 (531 non-ICU, 168 ICU)
- Apr. 20: 676 (483 non-ICU, 193 ICU)
Test and positivity rates
The 1,611 positive results in Wednesday’s update were from 24,501 tests completed, creating a test positivity rate of 6.57%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota positivity rate in the past seven days is 6.66%.
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: 8,904,956 (from 8,880,741)
- People tested: 3,923,029 (from 3,915,190)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 2,324,241 (from 2,324,975)
- People who have completed. vaccine series: 1,648,311 (was 1,630,999)
- Positive cases: 560,450 (from 558,850)
- Deaths: 7,044 – 387 of which “likely *” (up from 7,031)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 537,130 (from 534,889)
* 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.