COVID In Minnesota: State Leading Country In New Cases Per 100K
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The White House Coronavirus Task Force says the fall to winter surge in COVID-19 cases continues to spread to every corner of the country, with Minnesota leading all states in new cases per 100,000.
That's according to reports obtained by CBS News. Rhode Island and South Dakota are second and third for the most new cases per 100,000, respectively.
The data is between Nov. 28 and Dec. 4.
In the report, the task force warns states: "Despite the severity of this surge and the threat to the hospital systems, many state and local governments are not implementing the same mitigation policies that stemmed the tide of the summer surge; that must happen now."
The report also compares the United States negatively to Europe, saying there is "clear improvement in many European countries that implemented strong public and private mitigation but preserved schooling; the majority of the United States is not mitigating similarly."
PREVIOUS UPDATE
A day after Minnesota surpassed 4,000 overall deaths due to COVID-19, Minnesota health officials on Tuesday announced 22 additional deaths and 3,080 new coronavirus cases.
With Tuesday's update from the Minnesota Department of Health, the state is nearly at 360,000 overall cases since the pandemic began. More than 26,000 cases have been confirmed among health care workers. About 315,000 people who contracted the virus no longer need to quarantine.
Deaths now sit at 4,027, with 2,660 of those occurring in long-term care (LTC) or assisted living facilities. Fifteen of the 22 additional deaths reported Tuesday involved a patient in LTC or assisted living.
Along with relatively low case numbers reported Tuesday, testing also dipped. In the last 24 hours, 27,432 COVID-19 tests were completed. On Monday, MDH reported over 63,000 tests completed in 24 hours. Overall, about 2.68 million people have been tested in Minnesota so far.
In hospitals, 359 COVID-19 patients need intensive care unit treatment as of Monday. An additional 1,245 COVID-19 patients require non-ICU treatment. Since the pandemic began, about 18,594 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 (4,063 in the ICU).
VACCINE LATEST
In a big step forward in the COVID-19 fight, U.K. health authorities began rolling out the first doses of a widely tested and independently reviewed COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. The first recipient was grandmother Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week.
The second injection went to a man named William Shakespeare, an 81-year-old who hails from Warwickshire, the county where the bard was born, prompting a likely-well planned response online and in the press.
On the local side, Gov. Tim Walz outlined the state's vaccine distribution plan and says the state could see vaccine doses arrive as early as next week.
The FDA released documents Tuesday morning confirming that Pfizer's vaccine candidate is highly effective. Health officials say a decision on giving the vaccine emergency use authorization is expected Thursday.
