Minnesota reports 3,570 new COVID-19 cases, 22 deaths Tuesday
(FOX 9) - Minnesota health officials reported 3,570 new cases of COVID-19 and 22 additional deaths from the disease Tuesday.
Minnesota has now seen 322,312 cases of COVID-19 and 3,615 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
Minnesota health officials give update on COVID-19, plans for vaccine
Minnesota health officials gave an update on the COVID-19 situation after the Thanksgiving holiday and gave some news on how the state is planning for an eventual vaccine rollout.
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm cautioned Minnesotans not to put too much stock in the daily COVID-19 numbers as one or two days of low or high case counts are not necessarily a trend.
“It really is easy to get fixated on any one given day’s numbers, whether that’s represents a big increase or a notable decrease,” Malcolm said in a news conference Monday. “It’s certainly understandable, it’s human nature for all of us to really glom onto that daily data and look for significance in a given day’s numbers.”
Health officials need to see “sustained” reductions in case growth and positivity rates to consider whether the tide is truly turning in the battle against COVID-19, Malcolm said.
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The 3,570 newly reported cases were out of 22,757 completed tests—a positivity rate of 15.7%, although Tuesdays generally have a lower number of completed tests reported compared to other days.
There are 42,772 active cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota that require the infected person to be isolated. Approximately 87% of the state’s coronavirus cases have recovered.
Ten of the 22 deaths reported Tuesday were in the Twin Cities metro area, while the rest were in Greater Minnesota. The deaths included one Sherburne County resident in their early 50s. The remainder of the deaths were among people 65 or older.
Seventeen of the deaths were in long-term care facilities. To date, approximately 71% of the state’s deaths have been in those types of facilities.
The number of hospitalizations remained unchanged from the day before. There are currently 1,840 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota, 394 of whom are in the ICU.
As of Tuesday, approximately 95.8% of ICU beds and 98.2% of non-ICU beds in the Twin Cities metro are full.