Credit: U.S. Navy photo of first-class mass communications specialist Kyle Steckler, via Flickr
Saturday’s Minnesota Department of Health coronavirus update includes 54 more deaths and more than 2,500 new cases of COVID-19.
As no data were reported on New Year’s Day, the data published on Saturday correspond to New Year’s Thursday. Friday and Saturday data will be posted in Sunday’s update.
There have now been 5,377 deaths from the virus during the pandemic, of which (64.4%) (3,464) came from long-term care, including 33 of the 54 reported on Saturday.
Minnesota has not yet confirmed the new variant of coronavirus circulating in Europe and other parts of the world.
The state now provides updates on how many people have received COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. As of Jan. 2, the state says 57,017 people have been vaccinated in Minnesota, the vast majority of whom are health workers who have received the Pfizer vaccine.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization figures are not updated on weekends. As of December 30, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 895.
Of those hospitalized, 196 were in intensive care and 699 were receiving treatment that was not used in the ICU.
Test rates and positivity
The 2,530 positive results of Saturday’s update came from a total of 41,646 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 6.07%. This marks an increase in cases and the rate of positivity compared to last week’s figures.
However, it is difficult to determine whether this means ending the decline in the cases seen in December, as there may be anomalies in reports due to the holiday weekend.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percentage of positive percentages (divided by the total number of tests completed) below 5% be needed for at least two weeks to reopen the economy safely. This 5% threshold is based on the total positives divided by the total tests.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positive rate over the past seven days is 5.2%, with Minnesota no longer one of the states with a 7-day positive rate below 5%, having achieved this marks for a few days last week.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers
- Total tests: 5,616,567 (to 5,574,962)
- Tested people: 2,982,853 (more than 2,972,804)
- Positive cases: 417,832 (up to 415,302)
- Deaths: 5,377 – 176 of which are “probable *” (up to 5,323)
- Active cases: 19,633 (up to 18,222)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 398,199 (up to 397,080)
- Total people vaccinated: 57,017 (up to 44,638)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after testing positive for the COVID-19 antigen test, which is thought to be less accurate than the more common PCR test.