July 5 update on COVID-19 in MN: Case counts remain low entering next stretch of summer
3 things to know
Average daily case counts below 100 for seven straight days
67.1 percent of residents 16 and older have at least one vaccine shot; 63.9 percent are completely vaccinated
No new MDH data on Sunday or Monday; updates resume Tuesday
As Minnesota passes the Fourth of July holiday and enters the next stretch of summer, key COVID-19 metrics continue to hover at levels not seen since the earliest days of the pandemic.
State health officials skipped their usual COVID-19 data releases on Sunday and Monday because of the holiday. Those updates will resume at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
The most-recent update, on Saturday, showed Minnesota’s average daily count of new cases remaining below 100 for a seventh straight day. Hospital admissions and COVID-19 test positivity rates also remain at or near April 2020 lows.
But the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations remains stubbornly show — averaging 10,329 shots a day over the past week. That’s down from more than 17,000 a day a month ago.
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At the current pace, it’ll be mid-August before Minnesota reaches the much-discussed milestone of having 70 percent of residents 16 and older with at least one vaccine dose.
Metrics hover near pandemic lows
Known, active COVID-19 cases in Minnesota came in at 818 in Saturday’s data, staying below 1,000 for the 13th consecutive reporting day, though slightly higher than earlier in the week. It’s part of a stunning drop since May 1, when Minnesota had more than 15,000 active cases.
Receding caseloads mean fewer hospitalizations. As of Friday the Health Department reported 108 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota, slightly above a record low set earlier this week since the state began recording this data more than a year ago.
Five newly reported deaths on Saturday pushed Minnesota’s pandemic toll to 7,610. Among those who have died, about 59 percent had been living in long-term care or assisted living facilities; most had underlying health problems.
The state has recorded 605,660 total confirmed or probable cases in the pandemic, including the 116 posted Saturday.
About 99 percent of Minnesotans known to be infected with COVID-19 have recovered to the point where they no longer need to isolate.
Regionally, all parts of Minnesota are in good shape, near record lows with no signs of an upswing.
People in their 20s still make up the age bracket with the state’s largest number of confirmed cases — more than 112,000 since the pandemic began.
Although young people are less likely to feel the worst effects of the disease and end up hospitalized, experts worry they can spread it unknowingly to older relatives and members of other vulnerable populations.
Vaccination pace crawls
While Minnesota’s vaccination rate showed a brief uptick last week, the state is averaging fewer than 3,400 new first shots per day. The pace has fallen dramatically since peaking in April.
Nearly 3 million residents 16 and older now have at least one vaccine dose. More than 2.8 million are completely vaccinated. That’s about 63.9 percent of the state’s 16-and-older population completely vaccinated and 67.1 percent with at least one shot, including 91 percent of people 65 and older.
Add in more than 108,000 12-to-15-year-olds with at least one dose and Minnesota has topped three million residents with one or more shots. About 52 percent of the state’s total population is now completely vaccinated.
The vaccination pace, however, continues to trip along.
Minnesota’s also seeing big regional gaps in vaccination rates, with most counties outside the Twin Cities region still below 70 percent of adults vaccinated.
State shifts COVID-19 reporting as pandemic ebbs
As caseloads and hospitalizations continue to fall toward zero, the Minnesota Health Department last week said it would make several notable changes to its COVID-19 data reporting.
Among the changes, Minnesota will:
Now report COVID-19 deaths by the actual date of death rather than the date the death was reported.
Stop posting updated data on weekends, starting July 10. Data posted on Mondays will be as of 4 a.m. on Fridays. Data posted on Tuesdays will be for the remainder of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and as of 4 a.m. on Monday, the agency said.
Stop updating and posting the 14-day case rate by county each week. School districts had used that data to guide decision-making on when to bring students back into school buildings.
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.