Friday’s COVID-19 update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 3,714 new cases and 17 newly reported deaths, 15 occurring in September and two recorded in August 2021 and January 2021.
The state’s death toll is 8,170 since the start of the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 56.9% (4,639) were residents of long-term care.
As of Sept. 29, the state reported that 3,403,638 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 3,232,465 people have completed the vaccine series. The percentage of Minnesota’s population with at least one shot, based on age group:
- 12-15: 54%
- 16-17: 59%
- 18-49: 63%
- 50-64: 75%
- 65+: 91%
- Total population: 61.2%
58.1% of Minnesota’s total population, including children under the age of 12 who are not eligible for the vaccine, has completed the vaccine series. That jumps to 68.7% when excluding kids under the age of 12. MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can view it here.
Hospitalizations
Through Sept. 30, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 799 (up from the 789 reported Thursday). Of those hospitalized, 209 people are in intensive care and 590 were in general hospital care.
Here’s how many people are hospitalized based on regional location, though this doesn’t mean that each patient contracted the virus in these specific regions, as they may have been diverted depending upon available staffed beds.
- Metro: 107 ICU, 298 non-ICU (yesterday was 109, 280)
- Central: 33 ICU, 88 non-ICU (was 29, 96)
- Southeast: 28 ICU, 64 non-ICU (was 30, 64)
- Northeast: 16 ICU, 51 non-ICU (was 17, 52)
- Northwest: 13 ICU, 21 non-ICU (was 11, 21)
- South Central: 7 ICU, 34 non-ICU (was 7, 36)
- Southwest: 1 ICU, 17 non-ICU (was 1, 17)
- West Central: 4 ICU, 17 non-ICU (was 3, 16)
Testing and positivity rates.
The 3,714 positive results in Friday’s update were from 52,318 completed tests, creating a test positivity rate of 7.09%.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota’s test positivity rate over the past seven days is 7.60%.
The World Health Organization recommends that a percent positive rate (total positives divided by total completed tests) of below 5% for at least two weeks is necessary to safely keep the economy open.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers
- Total tests: 12,562,842 (up from 12,510,372)
- People tested: 5,671,312 (up from 5,643,178)
- People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 3,403,638 (up from 3,398,906)
- People who have completed vaccine series: 3,232,465 (up from 3,227,882)
- Positive cases: 714,790 (up from 711,094)
- Deaths: 8,170 – 468 of which are “probable*” (up from 8,153)
- Patients no longer requiring isolation: 685,073 (up from 683,858)
* Probable deaths are patients who died after testing positive using the COVID-19 antigen test, which is thought to be less accurate than the more common PCR test.