Credit: Michigan National Guard via Flickr
Thursday’s COVID-19 update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 2,736 new cases and 11 new deaths.
New deaths increase the number of deaths in the state to 6,989 during the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 61.9% (4,324) were residents of long-term care.
As of April 13, the state reported that 2,162,665 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 1,488,116 people have completed their vaccine series.
Forty-nine percent of Minnesota people aged 16 and over have received at least one shot, while 85% of the population aged 65 and over have had at least one dose of vaccine. Overall, 39% of the state’s population has had at least one dose.
MDH has a public bulletin board to track the progress of vaccines in Minnesota and you can see it here.
Hospitalizations
As of April 14, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 699, which exceeds the 681 reported Wednesday.
Of those hospitalized, 168 people were in intensive care (up to 164 who were reported Wednesday) and 531 were receiving treatment without an ICU (up to 517).
The following explains how Minnesota’s hospital admissions have progressed since March 7th.
- 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 2: 439 (337 in UCI, 112 UCI)
- April 8: 595 (461 in UCI, 134 UCI)
- April 14: 699 (531 in UCI, 168 UCI)
Test rates and positivity
The 2,736 positive results of Thursday’s update came from 46,409 completed tests, creating a test positivity rate of 5.89%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate over the past seven days is 7.19%.
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: 8,711,467 (to 8,665,530)
- Tested people: 3,860,044 (to 3,844,437)
- People with at least 1 vaccine: 2,162,665 (compared to 2,131,904)
- People who have completed it. series of vaccines: 1,488,116 (compared to 1,460,806)
- Positive cases: 549,830 (to 547,101)
- Deaths: 6,989 – 385 of which are “probable *” (up to 6,978)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 524,290 (up to 522,843)
* 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.