US Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Sara Eshleman via Flickr
More than 700 new cases of COVID-19 and eight newly reported deaths have been included in the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH)’s daily update on Saturday.
It brings Minnesota’s death toll to 1,761, with four of the last deaths occurring in long-term care facilities, and the rest in private residences.
Overall, 1,306 of the deaths of 1,761 COVID-19 residents have been of long-term care as assistance facilities, which the CDC says are more vulnerable to serious illness caused by the virus.
The number of hospital patients with COVID-19 increased from 296 Friday to 316 Saturday, with the ICU total also increasing / decreasing from 136 to 148 patients.
Friday’s update includes 746 new cases of the coronavirus, 12 of which have been removed for an official count of 734. Those positive cases are the result of 9,719 people being tested, creating a 24-hour reported period test positivity rate of 7 , 55%.
The daily positive rate is lower from the perspective of positive results 734, divided by total completed tests 16,685. In that case, the positivity score is 4.4%. The number of completed tests is always higher than the people who test, because some people test multiple times.
The test positivity rate over an average of 7 days, based on total number of people checked, according to Johns Hopkins University, was 6.49% as of Thursday.
“If you go above 5 percent, it indicates that you may be returning to a phase of rapid spread of the disease,” said MDH commissioner Jan Malcolm.
Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers:
- Total testing: 1,335,595 (up from 1,340,850)
- People test: 1,051,256 (up from 1,041,537)
- Positive cases: 68,867 (up from 68,133)
- Pass away: 1,761 (up from 1,753)
- Currently hospital: 316 (up to 296)
- Patients in intensive care: 148 (up from 136)
- Patients no longer need isolation: 61,698 (up from 60,920)
There have also been 46 deaths where COVID-19 is reported by doctors as the “probable” cause, although it is not included in the official COVID-19 death toll.
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Note: Previous BMTN updates have shown the test positivity rate based on the total number of tests completed, while the progress of the daily test positivity rate will be based on positive results of the total number of tests people (some patients are tested multiple times, which drives up the testing total).
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