Credit: The National Guard, via Flickr
Saturday’s COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 2,063 new cases and 11 new deaths.
It is the third day in a row that Minnesota has reported more than 2,000 cases, as the state continues to experience a new rise in the virus despite a growing number of vaccinations.
The eleven new deaths increase the number of deaths in the state to 6,875 over the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 62.4% (4,286) were long-term care residents, including four of the last 11 deaths.
As of April 1, the state reported that 1,770,290 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,129,863 people have completed their vaccine series.
Forty percent of Minnesota people 16 and older have received at least one shot.
MDH has a public bulletin board to track the progress of vaccines in Minnesota and you can see it here.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalization data is not updated on weekends.
As of April 1, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 439, which exceeds the 438 reported Thursday.
Of those hospitalized as of April 1, 112 people were in intensive care (up to 105 were reported on Thursday) and 327 were receiving treatment that was not used in the ICU (less than 330).
This is how Minnesota’s hospital admissions have progressed over the past month.
- March 1: 251 (191 no UCI, 60 UCI)
- March 7: 223 (177 in the UCI, 46 in the UCI)
- March 13: 255 (194 in the ICU, 61 in the ICU)
- March 20: 324 (246 no UCI, 78 UCI)
- March 27: 356 (264 no UCI, 92 UCI)
- April 1:439 (327 in UCI, 112 UCI)
Test rates and positivity
The 2,063 positive results of Saturday’s update were 35,558 completed tests, creating a daily positivity rate of 5.8%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate over the past seven days is 6.75%.
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.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers
- Total tests: 8,338,754 (to 8,303,506)
- Tested people: 3,726,485 (up to 3,717,258)
- People with at least 1 vaccine: 1,770,290 (compared to 1,720,811)
- People who have completed it. series of vaccines: 1,129,863 (compared to 1,088,332)
- Positive cases: 526,267 (up to 524,203)
- Deaths: 6,875 – 379 of which are “probable *” (up to 6,864)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 503,024 (up to 501,188)
* 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.