Coronavirus In Minnesota: State Sees 502 New Cases In Last Day, 6 More Deaths
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Minnesota Department of Health has reported another 502 positive cases of COVID-19 have been processed in the last 24 hours, and another six people have died. This comes after Monday's report of only one person dying of COVID-19, which was the lowest figure since spring.
There have now been 76,355 positive cases in the state since the start of the pandemic; of those, 8,396 have been among health care workers.
Almost 68,500 people who contracted COVID-19 no longer need to self-isolate.
As of Friday, the state's death toll is now at 1,823. The bulk of those deaths have come from cases at long-term care facilities, where 1,340 have died. However, of the six deaths reported on Tuesday, only one came from a long-term care or assisted living facility.
Hospitalization figures are continuing to hold relatively steady. On Friday, 294 were listed as currently being treated for the novel coronavirus. The number of patients needing intensive care units was at 136.
In the last 24 hours, more than 9,100 COVID-19 tests have been completed; usually there's a dip in the number of completed tests reported early in the week. More than 1.49 million tests have been completed in the state so far, with more than 1.13 million Minnesotans having been tested at some point since the start of the pandemic.
MORE: MDH's Situation Update For COVID-19
Additionally, the University of Minnesota has fired up a dashboard for each of its campuses, with statistics updated every Friday. Since March, the Twin Cities campus has seen 120 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff, four of which came during the last week. They've performed about 2,600 tests at the Twin Cities campus, with a 4.6% reported positivity rate.
According to the state's Dial Back Dashboard, the state's positivity rate is at about 5% as of Aug. 5, accounting for the delay in data. If the rate were to soar to 15% or climb 5% over 14 days, health officials would consider tightening COVID-19 restrictions.
Also according to the Dial Back Dashboard, the new positive cases that are attributable to community spread remains above 30% (currently at 35%), and the number of new cases per 100,000 Minnesota residents is above 5 (it's currently at 12). Both of those are also indicators for whether to tighten or scale back restrictions in the state.
