Here is Minnesota's COVID-19 update for Friday, April 2

BMTN provides a COVID-19 update at 11 a.m. seven days a week.

Author:: Joe Nelson
Publish date:: Apr 2, 2021

covid-19, coronavirus — Credit: Hospital CLÍNIC via Flickr

Friday's COVID update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 2,553 new cases and four new deaths. It's the second straight day with more than 2,000, indicating a rising trend in Minnesota.

The four new deaths increases the state's death toll to (6,864) over the course of the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 62.4% (4,282) were residents of long-term care.

Through Mar. 31, the state reported that 1,720,811 people have received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 1,088,332 people have completed their vaccine series.

Thirty-nine percent of Minnesotans aged 16-plus have received at least one shot.

MDH has a public dashboard to track vaccine progress in Minnesota, and you can view it here.

Hospitalizations

Through April 1, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 439, which is up from 438 reported Thursday.

Of those hospitalized through April 1, 112 people were in intensive care (up from 105 reported Thursday) and 327 were receiving non-ICU treatment (down from 330).

Here's how Minnesota's hospital admissions have progress the past month.

Mar. 1: 251 (191 non-ICU, 60 ICU)
Mar. 7: 223 (177 non-ICU, 46 ICU)
Mar. 13: 255 (194 non-ICU, 61 ICU)
Mar. 20: 324 (246 non-ICU, 78 ICU)
Mar. 27: 356 (264 non-ICU, 92 ICU)
Today: 439 (327 non-ICU, 112 ICU)

Testing and positivity rates

The 2,554 positive results in Friday's update were from 50,517 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 5.05%

According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota's test positivity rate over the past seven days is 6.37%.

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 reopen the economy. That 5% threshold is based on total positives divided by total tests.

Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers

Total tests: 8,303,506 (up from 8,253,622)
People tested: 3,717,258 (up from 3,703,686)
People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 1,720,811 (up from 1,682,545)
People who have completed. vaccine series: 1,088,332 (up from 1,057,848)
Positive cases: 524,203 (up from 521,667)
Deaths: 6,864 – 378 of which are "probable*" (up from 6,860)
Patients no longer requiring isolation: 501,188 (up from 500,351)

* 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.