More than 7,200 cases, 39 deaths included in Minnesota's Thursday COVID-19 update

A day after reporting a record 56 deaths from COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health has announced 39 more deaths in Thursday's update. That total includes one person aged 35-39 in Stearns County and another person in their 40s from Dakota County. 

In addition, Thursday's update features a single-day reporting record of 7,228 new cases, which smashes the previous record of approximately 6,000 set last week. 

The 39 fatal cases brings Minnesota's death toll from COVID-19 to 2,793. Of those, 1,921 were residents of long-term care facilities, including 23 of the 39 deaths reported Thursday.

The state has reported 336 deaths in the first 12 days of November compared to 423 in all of October. 

Hospitalizations

As of Thursday, the number off people with COVID-19 hospitalized in Minnesota was at 1,329, including 278 people in intensive care. That's an increase from 1,299 hospitalizations in Wednesday's report, though the number of people in an ICU dropped from 282. 

Note: Hospital totals are preliminary and are subject to adjustment in the days ahead.

Testing and positivity rates

The 7,228 positive results were from a total of 48,513 completed tests, creating a daily test positivity rate of 14.9%.

Those completed tests were from 25,022 people. People are often tested more than once, so the test positivity rate when dividing positives by people tested is 28.9% today.

The World Health Organization recommended in May 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.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Minnesota's percent positive over the past seven days is 14.31%.

Coronavirus in Minnesota by the numbers

• Total tests: 3,253,880 (up from 3,194,842)
• People tested: 20,068,678 (up from 20,043,656)
• Positive cases: 201,795 (up from 194,570)
• Deaths: 2,793 – 37 of which are "probable*" (up from 2,854)
• Patients no longer requiring isolation: 159,467 (up from 157,16)

* 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.