Minnesota's COVID-19 update for Wednesday, September 15

Hospitalizations dropped by 30 after rising to nearly 750 in Tuesday's report.

Author:
Joe Nelson
Publish date:
Sep 15, 2021

Hospitalizations dropped by 30 after rising to nearly 750 in Tuesday's report.

Wednesday's COVID-19 update from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) includes 2,736 new cases and 41 newly reported deaths, though only 12 of the 41 occurred this month, while 29 others happened as far back as June 2020.

The state's death toll is 7,956 since the start of the pandemic. Of the total deaths, 57.7% (4,597) were residents of long-term care.

As of Sept. 13, the state reported that 3,362,569 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 3,179,113 people have completed the vaccine series. The percentage of Minnesota's population with at least one shot, based on age group:

12-15: 53%
16-17: 59%
18-49: 63%
50-64: 75%
65+: 91%
Total population: 60%

57.1% 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 67.6% 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. 14, the number of people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was 718 (down from 748 reported Tuesday).

Of those hospitalized, 208 people are in intensive care and 510 were in general hospital care. Even with the drop of 30 non-ICU cases from Tuesday's report, it is still on par with the peak of the spring surge that maxed out at 202 patients in intensive care and 517 people 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: 117 ICU, 283 non-ICU
Central: 29 ICU, 69 non-ICU
Southeast: 28 ICU, 37 non-ICU
Northeast: 11 ICU, 36 non-ICU
Northwest: 10 ICU, 19 non-ICU
South Central: 8 ICU, 48 non-ICU
Southwest: 1 ICU, 12 non-ICU
West Central: 4 ICU, 6 non-ICU

Testing and positivity rates.

The 2,736 positive results in Wednesday's update were from 34,371 completed tests, creating a test positivity rate of 7.96%.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota's test positivity rate over the past seven days is 7.23%.

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: 11,921,514 (up from 11,887,293)
People tested: 5,326,408 (up from 5,308,481)
People with at least 1 vaccine shot: 3,362,569 (up from 3,359,990)
People who have completed vaccine series: 3,179,113 (up from 3,175,317)
Positive cases: 676,505 (up from 673,774)
Deaths: 7,956 – 454 of which are "probable*" (up from 7,915)
Patients no longer requiring isolation: 655,064 (up from 652,675)

* 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.