Sept. 13 update on COVID-19 in MN: New cases trend downward; 13 more deaths
Updated: 6:20 p.m.
Minnesota’s COVID-19 outbreak appears to have recovered from a modest spike in late August, according to the latest data from the state Department of Health on Sunday.
The numbers of daily new cases and new hospitalizations have trended downward from the peak last month. Over the last seven days, Minnesota has averaged around 550 new cases each day with about 256 people per day hospitalized with COVID-19. Those numbers are down from a trend of more than 800 new daily cases and more than 300 hospitalizations on Aug. 31.
Deaths from COVID-19 have risen in recent days — with Thursday, Friday and Sunday all reporting double-digit death tolls from the disease. However, deaths from COVID-19 may come as late as several weeks after infection, so the recent rise in deaths might reflect the late-August spike in cases.
Much of the last week saw abnormally low levels of newly reported cases — but these were due to reporting delays associated with the Labor Day weekend. The rise in cases over the last several days, in turn, appears to reflect the arrival of those delayed reports rather than an actual spike in cases.
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What remains unclear is what course the outbreak will take in coming days. Health officials worried that Labor Day gatherings might spread the disease. Due to the time it takes for symptoms to emerge after infection, and for tests to process, such a rise of infections might start appearing next week, if it occurs.
Here are Minnesota’s current COVID-19 statistics:
1,919 deaths (13 new)
84,311 positive cases (741 new)
241 still hospitalized; 136 in ICUs
77,461 COVID-19 patients no longer requiring isolation
1,707,514 tests; 1,233,305 people tested
Wisconsin sees surge of cases
COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin have risen by two-thirds in the past two weeks, to the state’s highest-recorded levels.
On Sunday, Wisconsin reported more than 1,550 new confirmed cases, a new record for the state. It’s also more cases than Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota or South Dakota have ever reported in a single day. Nor is it an outlier — Wisconsin’s number of new cases has been rising for two weeks, while its number of new tests has remained flat.
Adjusted for population, Wisconsin is averaging more than 200 new cases per million residents, twice as high as Minnesota. Though a record for Wisconsin, Iowa and both Dakota saw significantly higher rates in late August. Since late August, Iowa and South Dakota have seen their cases fall, while North Dakota continues to report high numbers of new cases per capita.
Lyon County wedding is state’s largest social spreader event
State public health officials continue to implore Minnesotans to wear masks in indoor public spaces, socially distance and take other precautions against the disease.
Despite the lower case counts this week, community spread is on the rise across the state and officials worry people are numbing to the need to stay vigilant.
Public health authorities renewed their concerns that backyard parties, informal get-togethers and social functions to start the school year are fueling the latest COVID-19 case counts.
On Thursday, they declared a late-August wedding in southwestern Minnesota as the state’s largest single social spreader event to date.
Some 300 people attended the wedding and reception in Ghent, in Lyon County, on Aug. 22. As of Thursday there were at least 75 COVID-19 cases scattered over 14 counties directly tied to that wedding, said Kris Ehresmann, the state’s infectious disease director.
One person had been hospitalized as of Thursday. The median age of those infected from the wedding is 25; the age range runs from 10 to 84 years old.
“This is the largest event we’ve seen pertaining to disease transmission for a social event,” Ehresmann said.
Many of those at the wedding worked in health care and education, but the department hasn’t yet identified any cases of secondary spread, she added.
College campus worries rise
State health authorities remain particularly concerned about young adults as spreaders of the virus.
People in their 20s make up the age bracket with the state’s largest number of confirmed cases — more than 19,000 since the pandemic began, including more than 11,000 among people ages 20-24.
They’ve been driving the recent outbreaks, although the number of high school-age children confirmed with the disease has also grown, topping 7,500 total cases for children 15 to 19 years old since the pandemic began.
On Sunday, just across the border from Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse responded to rising cases by moving all in-person classes online, closing dining halls and most campus buildings and mandating face coverings at all times on campus, indoors or outdoors.
Classes are suspended Monday and Tuesday before resuming online on Wednesday.
“I share the disappointment and frustration of students, families, faculty and staff who had hoped we might enjoy the start to this fall semester together,” chancellor Joe Gow said in an all-campus email Sunday.
The move at UW-La Crosse followed a decision last week at nearby Winona State University in Minnesota to implement an immediate 14-day campus quarantine that will limit all nonessential activities on campus to slow the spread of COVID-19.
While less likely to feel the worst effects of the disease, experts worry youth and young adults will spread it to grandparents and other vulnerable populations and could also hamper attempts to reopen campuses completely to in-person teaching.
Officials are also concerned about case clusters around Minnesota State University Moorhead and Concordia College in Moorhead.
Regionally, the Twin Cities and suburbs had been driving the counts of newly reported cases. Recent data, though, show cases have been climbing in northern and central Minnesota. Friday’s data, however, showed new case counts retreating across the state.
Still, the number of active, confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota remains at around 6,000 cases on a seven-day average.
Positive ‘glimmers’
Gov. Tim Walz told MPR News on Friday that there were some positive "glimmers" in some of the data points that could make it possible to ease some more restrictions on daily life if they hold true.
The governor said his goal was to "open businesses as quickly and safely as we can and keep them open."
Asked what it would take for him to lift the peacetime emergency around COVID-19 — powers that GOP leaders have demanded he stop using — Walz said if experts at the Mayo Clinic told him the public health threat has passed, he'd be more comfortable doing so.
The governor on Friday extended his peacetime emergency by 30 more days.
Developments around the state
MN education commissioner: Keep ill kids home
With the school year starting for many students Tuesday, state K-12 education officials also implored families and teachers to stay home when they are sick.
Many students are back in the classroom while others are distance learning at home.
"I have been that parent, trying to decide whether my child is too sick to send to school so that I can get to work,” Education Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker said Tuesday as she urged parents to continue to limit contact with others and wear masks to help limit COVID-19 in schools.
“I have been that teacher worried about the burden on my colleagues that there isn't a substitute,” she added. “I am urging you to please stay home when you are sick, keep your child home when you are sick this year."
Officials say out of the districts and charter schools that have reported their learning models, nearly two-thirds are opening the school year with a hybrid approach, and a quarter are doing full-time in person. The rest are starting with distance learning.
— MPR News Staff
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COVID-19 in Minnesota
Data in these graphs are based on the Minnesota Department of Health's cumulative totals released at 11 a.m. daily. You can find more detailed statistics on COVID-19 at the Health Department website.