Credit: US Pacific Fleet via Flickr
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) COVID update on Thursday includes 940 new cases and 14 new deaths.
The new reported deaths bring the state total to 6,521 over the pandemic.
Of the total deaths, 62.4% (4,070) were residents of long-term care, inclusive
As of March 2, the state reported that 948,127 people had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 500,188 people had completed the vaccine doses needed for the maximum effect of the vaccines.
MDH has a public bulletin board to track the progress of vaccines in Minnesota and you can see it here.
Hospitalizations
MDH has not updated hospitalization figures since Tuesday.
As of March 1, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 243, up from 230 on February 28.
Of those hospitalized, 57 are in intensive care (up to 47) and 186 receive treatment that is not used in the ICU (up to 183).
Test rates and positivity
The 940 positive results of Thursday’s update came from 68,840 completed tests, which created a daily positivity rate of 1.36%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the Minnesota test positivity rate over the past seven days is 3.19%
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: 7,465,199 (compared to 7,396,423)
- Tested people: 3,499,299 (up to 3,484,045)
- People with at least 1 vaccine: 948,127 (up to 928,963)
- People with 2 vaccines: 500,188 (more than 484,383)
- Positive cases: 487,374 (up to 486,434)
- Deaths: 6,521 – 273 of which are “probable *” (up to 6,507)
- Patients who no longer need isolation: 473,728 (up to 473,252)
* 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.