[ad_1]
Updated at 11:30 a.m.
COVID-19 data from Minnesota on Tuesday showed a moderate daily death toll, but current hospitalizations again exceed 300 people.
The state has continued to ride what authorities have described as the crest of the latest wave of the disease.
The number of newly confirmed cases was relatively low, at 359, but was likely due to a drop in testing volume.
Current hospitalizations (304) increased by 18 while those requiring intensive care (154) decreased by one. Hospitalizations – a key parameter as authorities try to manage the spread of the disease – have exceeded 300 cases on average since the end of July.
That’s well below a high in late May, but remains stubbornly persistent.
Despite recent relative stability in data, the number of confirmed active cases in Minnesota remains close to its peak at the end of May, and public health leaders believe that while the state is at the top of the current wave, more waves are on the way.
“We are in a place where things are stable, but the problem is that we are stable at a high rate of cases,” Kris Ehresmann, the state’s director of infectious diseases, told reporters on Monday.
Of the 66,061 confirmed cases of the disease since the start of the pandemic, about 90 percent have recovered to the point where they no longer need to be isolated.
With nine more deaths reported Tuesday, Minnesota’s confirmed toll in the pandemic stands at 1,721. About 75% of those who died were living in long-term care facilities or assisted living facilities.
College concerns grow as the fall semester approaches
Concerns persist about the growth of COVID-19 among Minnesota’s youth, including that those infected are inadvertently spreading the virus to grandparents and other more vulnerable people.
People in their 20s remain the age group with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the pandemic – more than 15,000.
State public health officials are increasingly concerned about student participation in summer parties and other gatherings that could fuel the spread of COVID-19 and bring it to campuses this autumn.
Clusters of cases surfaced in late June around college bars, including in Mankato, Minneapolis and St. Cloud. Concerns about similar potential outbreaks are spreading again as the fall semester approaches.
“It’s a bad time to throw a party, take a group road trip, or otherwise lighten COVID-19 precautions,” Ehresmann told reporters on Friday, calling on students to “keep a low profile before they go. go”.
“The pandemic is still a big problem and will likely become a bigger problem this fall,” she said. “The world has changed and will not return to normal for at least the next few months.”
On Monday, she said the Department of Health would release additional advice to colleges on ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19.
Cases are growing in the south
Regionally, the Twin Cities and its suburbs were behind the number of newly reported cases, although there is a recovery now in southern Minnesota.
Cases in northern Minnesota have been on the rise for weeks, although they were down in the most recent report. Beltrami County, home to Bemidji, has seen a steady rise in recent weeks. The county reported 279 cases and one death on Tuesday.
Meat-packing operations had been hot spots for large outbreaks in southwest, midwest and central Minnesota at the start of the pandemic.
New cases have slowed considerably in recent weeks, although the problem has recently resurfaced in McLeod County (278 cases), where more than 20 workers at a Seneca Foods factory in Glencoe were recently identified during an outbreak. .
Developments across the state
University of M study: Minn. Among the States with the greatest racial disparities in COVID-19
A University of Minnesota study of COVID-19 data from 12 states found racial and ethnic disparities among people hospitalized with the coronavirus.
The two-month study looked at 49,000 hospitalizations and found that blacks were hospitalized at a higher rate than whites in all 12 states. The study found that Minnesota had some of the highest disparities in black hospitalizations. While about 7% of the state’s population is black, race made up a quarter of those hospitalized with the virus.
University of Minnesota professor Pinar Karaca-Mandic, a health economist at the Carlson School, said there are racial disparities in confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well.
“Not all infected people are hospitalized, do they? You have to show a more severe form of the disease to show up in the hospital, and we see that in our data, there must be essentially disparities on both sides. of this medal “, Karaca Said Mandic.
The study found similar hospitalization disparities in state data for Hispanic and Native American populations.
– Peter Cox | MPR News
Mayo Clinic: Plasma efforts are promising
Researchers with a national program led by the Mayo Clinic say they have made two key findings about the use of plasma to treat people with COVID-19.
The so-called convalescent plasma comes from people who have recovered from the disease. The program included more than 35,000 hospital patients.
Researchers say that starting plasma transfusions earlier – within three days of a diagnosis of COVID-19 – was associated with a lower death rate. This rate also fell for patients who received plasma with higher levels of antibodies.
Mayo officials noted that it was not a clinical trial and has not yet been peer reviewed, but they say the results may help shed light future trials for COVID-19 treatments.
– The MPR News team
School orientation map changes with new data
New data released by the Minnesota Department of Health is once again shifting the focus of some of the state’s school districts as they decide to teach children in person, online, or in some combination based on their needs. local COVID-19 conditions.
The new figures, for example, indicate that elementary school students in Ramsey and Dakota counties would no longer be recommended to attend school in person – if school started this week – due to the increase in cases of COVID-19.
Data released Thursday by the Department of Health indicates that 11 counties, including Ramsey and Dakota, are expected to drop in-person learning due to the increase in cases.
Recommendations for reopening the school based on the number of COVID-19 cases
Schools in 14 other counties, largely in the southern part of the state, would be recommended to switch to in-person learning. The state’s other 62 counties saw no change in their recommendations, which are based on COVID-19 cases per capita over a 14-day period.
Officials stressed that the map is meant to be a starting point for school districts as they assess their combination of in-person and online education in the COVID-19 era. The figures and accompanying recommendations are now updated weekly.
It is recommended that counties with very few cases per capita have in-person learning for all students – 48 counties as of Thursday.
In more cases, schools are urged to have high school students do a mix of in-person and distance learning while continuing their in-person education for elementary grades. 29 other counties fall into this category.
Eight counties are currently recommended for blended learning for all students. They include Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Scott, Sherburne, and Blue Earth.
Two counties have so many cases that the state is currently recommending graduate students to study full-time remotely: Rock County in southwestern Minnesota and Red Lake County in northwestern Minnesota. .
Officials stressed that county-level data is a roadmap, not an order. Districts in these counties make decisions that may not exactly match the data.
Public Schools in St. Paul, the second largest school district in the state and the largest district in Ramsey County, have already announced the start of the school year with all distance learning students and will reconsider the decision end of September.
– David H. Montgomery | MPR News
Main titles
Policy slows the flow of US virus funds to local public health: Congress has allocated billions of dollars to alleviate the coronavirus crisis. A joint investigation by Kaiser Health News and the AP finds that many communities with large epidemics have spent little of that federal money in local public health departments on work such as testing and contact tracing. Others, like Minnesota, were slow to do so.
COVID-19 in Minnesota
The data in these charts is based on cumulative totals from the Minnesota Department of Health released at 11 a.m. daily. You can find more detailed statistics on COVID-19 at Department of Health website.
The coronavirus is spread through respiratory droplets, coughs and sneezes, in the same way that the flu can be spread.
[ad_2]
Source link