MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota health officials said Monday the weekly rate of new coronavirus case growth has outstripped weekly growth in testing for the first time since the pandemic began.
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said weekly case growth was up 9.6%, compared to testing rate growth of 7.8%. Malcolm called that and a growing test positivity rate of more than 5% a “red flag and concern that the rate of viral presence is still very high and growing.”
“This is a big change,” Malcolm said. “Despite our really pretty impressively high testing numbers, we’re still not able to catch all the disease that is out there.”
The state reported 1,632 new cases of the virus and five deaths on Monday after climbing over 2,000 daily cases on one day last week. Hospitalizations have been steadily increasing, Malcolm said, with 469 patients in the hospital and 137 in intensive care.
Case growth in Minnesota was about 338 per 100,000 people over the past two weeks, 16th in the country. Over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases in the state has increased by 493.2, an increase of 48.7%. The state hit a one-day record of 2,297 new cases Friday.
Health officials said Monday they are worried individuals are letting their guard down and not taking the same precautionary measures in private gatherings like parties, weddings and other social interactions as they do in public settings, which may be stoking case growth statewide.
“What we’re seeing is transmission is everywhere,” Malcolm said. “It’s not just one or two sources, it’s not one or two kinds of settings, it’s these individual decisions that we’re all making that is fueling the rate of increase that we’re seeing.”
Though Minnesota is seeing cases rise, the state is being outpaced by outbreaks in surrounding states. This weekend, North Dakota and South Dakota ranked first and second in new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks with 1,069 and 978 respectively, and Wisconsin broke its record for new positive cases three times last week.
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