COVID In Minnesota: State Surpasses 600K Positive Cases, With Vaccine Incentives Forthcoming
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- On Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz is set to announce new incentives to 100,000 Minnesotan to get vaccinated between Memorial Day Weekend and the end of June. The state wants 70% of Minnesotans over 16 vaccinated by that time, the threshold health officials have said would indicate the state has reached "herd immunity."
As of Thursday morning, the latest figures from the Minnesota Department of Health showed that about 64% of Minnesotans 16 or older had received at least one dose, and 89% of those 65 or older had received at least one dose. In total, the state has administered 5,212,215 doses of vaccine, and has also reached about 2.54 million residents having completed their vaccine series.
On Thursday, the state health department reported 505 newly confirmed positive cases and 10 deaths due to the virus in the last 24 hours, from about 26,000 newly completed tests. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 600,408 positive cases and 7,403 deaths.
The deaths reported in the last day include one person in their late 20s from Redwood County, and another in their early 30s from Hennepin County.
Additionally, the health department reports that the rolling average positivity rate is now at 4.1%, well below the threshold for increased caution and a figure that hasn't been last seen since early March.
Hospitalization figures are also continuing to track down significantly. The latest figures of those hospitalized show 80 Minnesotans in ICU. There are an additional 254 reported hospitalizations for COVID in the state.
The figures show an average of 7.4 new daily hospitalizations per 100,000 residents. Anything above eight hospitalizations per 100,000 is considered high risk, but that figure has still been on a downward trend over the last nearly two months.
Community spread remains about as high as has been reported since the start of the pandemic, with 44.1% of cases reported with no known source of exposure.
According to MDH, since the pandemic began, more than 4.19 million Minnesotans have been tested.