Minnesota reports 5,945 new COVID-19 cases, 26 deaths Tuesday
(FOX 9) - Minnesota health officials reported 5,945 new cases of COVID-19 and 26 additional deaths Tuesday.
The 5,945 newly reported cases were out of 33,542 completed tests—a positivity rate of 17.7%, although Tuesdays typically see a lower testing volume than other days of the week.
Minnesota has seen 236,949 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. There are currently 50,269 active cases that require isolation.
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said Monday Minnesota could surpass 300,000 COVID-19 cases next week. It took Minnesota 29 weeks from when the state saw its first case of COVID-19 to hit 100,000 cases of the coronavirus. Six weeks later, on Nov. 10, the state surpassed 200,000 cases.
The rate of increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Minnesota “has just accelerated far beyond even our most conservative projections,” Malcolm said.
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Of the 26 deaths reported Thursday, half were in the Twin Cities metro while the other half were in Greater Minnesota. The deaths were all among people ages 50 or older.
Twelve of the deaths were in long-term care or assisted living facilities and three were in group or behavioral homes.
To date, 2,943 people in Minnesota have died from COVID-19.
There are currently 1,669 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota, 346 of whom are in the ICU—the highest either of those numbers have been so far.
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State health officials said Monday the recent explosion of COVID-19 cases in Minnesota is going to show up in the state’s hospitals, which are already nearing capacity, three weeks from now, regardless of what people do.
However, Malcolm said what people doing in the next few weeks is going to determine what the next few months look like for Minnesota.
“What we’re going to do in the next couple of weeks is going to tell the story of what later December and January and February are going to look like in our state,” she said.
With COVID-19 infections increasing rapidly across the state, Malcolm says gathering with people outside your immediate household is much riskier now than it was a couple of weeks ago. Health officials and health care workers are encouraging people to stay home, especially for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
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