New vaccines arrive as COVID-19 wastewater levels reach 2024 highpoint

Along with the annual flu vaccine, the new COVID-19 vaccine formulation is now widely available in Minnesota. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months and older to get an updated COVID-19 vaccine, which is a protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death.  

Vaccination also protects against Long COVID, which currently impacts more than seven percent of adults in Minnesota according to the latest data. 

Thursday’s “Viral Respiratory Illness in Minnesota” update from the state’s health department led with this summary:  

• COVID-19: Hospitalization rates remain elevated and stable. 

• Influenza: Hospitalization rates remain low and stable.  

• RSV: Hospitalization rates remain low and stable. 

That is the same update that they’ve used for a few weeks now, but it is an apt one: Like the previous 5 weeks, Minnesota's COVID-19 hospitalization rate stands at nearly five per 10,000, the highest it has been since early February.  

Flu and RSV season is just around the corner, but Minnesota Department of Health's data, updated through the week ending Sept. 14, is still showing close to zero hospitalizations for each. 

A quick look at some other communicable diseases 

Several other diseases that are transmissible human to human, many of which can be prevented by vaccination, have been in the local, national and international news recently. Here is a quick summary of the latest stats from the Minnesota Department of Health:  

• Syphilis: Through Aug. 20 there have been 924 confirmed cases of syphilis in the state. Unless the case rate picks up, Minnesota is on track for fewer cases this year than the past three years, but ahead of 2019 and 2020. 

• Pertussis or Whooping Cough: 826 cases reported in Minnesota so far this year. This is a steep rise, after only 61 cases in 2023, although the state routinely saw at least 500 cases, and sometimes more than 1,000 cases in the years 2008 to 2017. Whooping cough was very rare in Minnesota from 1960 through the early 1990s.  

• Varicella and zoster (chicken pox and shingles): Minnesota's case count so far this year stands at 121. The state has seen less than 250 cases in each of the past four years, after seeing at least 325 cases each year from 2015 to 2019. 

• Measles: The state's count of measles cases is 59 so far this year, only the fourth time the state has seen a double-digit count this century and already the second highest count over that span. 

• Tuberculosis: The health department has reported 58 cases in the state through the first six months of this year. This appears to be on track or less than an average of 140 cases in Minnesota per year 2018 to 2022. 

• Mpox: Fourteen cases reported so far this year, following 20 last year, down from 234 in the 2022 outbreak. 

Data from other public health concerns, including tobacco use, gun violence, alcohol and drug abuse including opioids, domestic and sexual violence, and occupational hazards, is less timely. However, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety is reporting 334 lives lost to traffic accidents on Minnesota roadways so far this year.  

Bird – and pig – flu update 

Another strain of flu present in domesticated animals – known as bird flu, highly pathogenic avian influenza, or more specifically H5N1 – had been spreading rapidly this year. Cases have been detected in cows and goats nationally as well as here in Minnesota, with a few cases showing up among people in other states working on dairy farms.  

As reported by the Center for Disease Research and Policy, Public health officials continue to monitor whether H5N1 could further mutate into a disease transmissible human-to-human, especially in light of the sickness of two Missouri health care workers following their work with a patient with H5N1. That patient had no known exposure to cows or other sick patients.   

The spread of H5N1 among animals appears to be slowing, with no new cases reported by the Minnesota Board of Animal Health in the state’s many chicken and turkey flocks since July.  

Minnesota Department of Health recently reported that two children caught a different animal flu strain, H3N2v, either directly or indirectly through exposure to pigs at the state fair. Both recovered and the department does not expect further spread.  

More on COVID-19: levels are up in wastewater, as are deaths 

New data from the University of Minnesota’s ongoing Wastewater Surveillance Study shows that statewide COVID-19 levels are now higher than measured all year, including the high during the wave in December 2023 into January 2024. Regionally, the most severe spike is in the study’s Northeast region, which appears especially driven by increases at the Mora and Central Iron Range treatment plants.  

Statewide COVID-19 wastewater levels are higher than they have been since April of 2023. In the Twin Cities region levels now match those last seen in March of 2023 and in Northeast levels are up to what they were in February of 2023.  

The good news is that COVID-19 levels appear to be dropping in the study’s South Central, South East, Northwest and Central regions. Also, it is worth noting that while wastewater is a leading indicator, so far COVID-19 hospitalizations have not yet followed suit; hospitalizations are elevated, but matching the levels seen in February of this year, not the much higher peak in late December 2023. 

In addition to the “elevated and stable” COVID-19 hospitalization rate, the Minnesota Department of Health is reporting an increased number of deaths caused at least in part by COVID-19. After being in the single digits through most of June and July the health department has reported 20 or more deaths in four of the last seven weeks, including in the preliminary data for the week ending Sept. 14, which is likely to rise as additional information comes in. 

Note: For additional information, see COVID-19 in Minnesota: Key data.

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