Minnesota reports 5,192 new COVID-19 cases, 77 more deaths Wednesday

(FOX 9) - Minnesota health officials reported 5,192 new cases of COVID-19 and 77 additional deaths from the disease Wednesday.

Minnesota has now seen 327,477 cases of COVID-19 and 3,692 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.

The 5,192 newly reported cases were out of 42,737 completed tests—a positivity rate of 12.1%.

Approximately 87% of the state’s coronavirus cases have recovered.

Of the 77 newly reported deaths, 33 of the people lived in long-term care facilities. To date, approximately 71% of the state’s deaths have been in those types of facilities.

As of Wednesday, approximately 96% of ICU beds and 98.2% of non-ICU beds in the Twin Cities metro are full.