COVID In Minnesota: 424 New Cases, 3 More Deaths Reported As Delta Variant Continues To Spread
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Minnesota health officials reported Monday 424 more cases of COVID-19 and three additional deaths as the Delta variant continues to spread in the state.
The high-contagious variant is accounting for about 75% of all new cases, health officials say. Nearly all of the new cases are among people who are unvaccinated.
Minnesota's vaccination rate has slowed to a crawl in recent weeks. Currently, 56% of the state's eligible population, those ages 12 and up, have received at least one shot of the vaccine. Meanwhile, about 53% of those eligible have completed their vaccine series.
As the Delta variant has spread in Minnesota in recent weeks, the state's average positivity rate has spiked to 2.3%. While that's still below what health officials consider the threshold for caution, the rate has more than doubled since late last month, when it was at 1.1%.
Likewise, the rates for hospitalizations and new cases per 100,000 residents have also been rising, approaching levels not seen since the spring. As of Friday, 114 people were hospitalized with the virus, with 39 people in intensive care beds.
According to federal health officials, the vaccination rate in the country needs to speed up if the Delta variant is to be halted. If the rate doesn't improve, one model predicts that the country could experience, as a worst case scenario, 4,000 deaths a day by October.
Since the pandemic began last March, more than 600,000 people in Minnesota have contracted the virus and 7,650 people have died.
