July 7 update on COVID-19 in MN: Uptick, but no upswing in cases; no new deaths
3 things to know
Active counts stay below 1,000 for two straight weeks; hospitalizations back below 100
67.2 percent of residents 16 and older have at least one vaccine shot; 64.1 percent are completely vaccinated
July 4 holiday slows reporting
Updated 11:38 a.m.
Minnesota’s most recent COVID-19 data continues to offer signs of a pandemic that’s subdued but not quite dead.
New daily cases and the positive test rate have ticked up in recent days, but the size of that increase remains small. Overall caseloads are still hovering near their April 2020 lows.
COVID-19 watchers also shouldn’t read too much into the most recent numbers. The picture is muddled given reporting delays stemming from the July 4 holiday weekend. Wednesday's update contains three days of data.
One fact that is clear: There were no new COVID-19 deaths reported over the long weekend.
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Metrics hover near pandemic lows
Known, active COVID-19 cases in Minnesota came in at 787 in Wednesday’s report. The state’s seen cases stay below 1,000 for more than two weeks now, part of a dramatic drop since May 1, when Minnesota had more than 15,000 active cases.
Receding caseloads mean fewer hospitalizations. The latest Health Department numbers show 98 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota — back down below 100 — with 24 needing intensive care.
No newly reported deaths on Wednesday kept Minnesota’s pandemic toll at 7,615. 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 606,034 total confirmed or probable cases in the pandemic, including the 231 posted Wednesday, the sum of reports from 4 a.m. July 3 to 4 a.m. July 6.
Roughly 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.
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
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 64.1 percent of the state’s 16-and-older population completely vaccinated and 67.2 percent with at least one shot, including 91 percent of people 65 and older.
Add in more than 109,000 12-to-15-year-olds with at least one dose and Minnesota has topped 3 million residents with one or more shots. About 52 percent of the state’s total population is now completely vaccinated.
While Minnesota’s vaccination rate recently showed an uptick, the pace has fallen dramatically since peaking in April and continues to trudge along.
At the current pace, it appears it will be late August before Minnesota reaches the much-discussed milestone of having 70 percent of residents 16 and older with at least one vaccine dose.
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.
Latest developments
Metro Transit to resume some express bus service
Metro Transit says it will be ramping up express bus service ahead of the Labor Day holiday, in anticipation of more people returning to commuting for work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the transit agency suspended dozens of limited stop bus routes, originally established to bring workers in from park-and-ride lots and suburban destinations.
Fourteen routes, mainly park-and-ride service into downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, will resume in August. Schedules will be posted July 23 for the lines coming back into service starting Aug. 21.
Demand may take a long time to return, said Adam Harrington, Metro Transit’s director of service development.
"Our ridership for the past 15 months has been at a system level down about 60 to 70 percent, particularly on locals, but it's been down 90 percent on commuter express,” he said. “We're hoping that we're able to bring service back to meet people where they're at and provide that connectivity into the downtowns."
Metro Transit is weighing what to do with dozens of other express service routes. Harrington said about 40 express routes are still on hold.
— Tim Nelson | MPR News
Some Minnesota COVID-19 business aid went unspent
A Minnesota program set up to give certain businesses a boost during the pandemic ended with only 75 percent of available money being spent.
Last December, state lawmakers approved $88 million for hospitality industry grants. The money was to go to breweries, recreational sports facilities, bars and restaurants and a few other types of businesses. The grants ranged from $10,000 to $45,000 and depended on typical employment levels.
State officials had contacted businesses to inform them of the program, which was predicated on helping establishments that saw a 30-percent drop in sales during a six-month window.
A new report from the Department of Revenue shows that $67 million of the total award was spent by a mid-March deadline. The rest was returned to the general treasury. About 3,900 businesses got a relief check. Two-thirds were restaurants. Most of the aid went out in January.
— Brian Bakst | MPR News
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.
Correction (July 7, 2021): Lucas Ashley’s name was misspelled in a photo caption in an earlier version of this story.