UPDATE: New COVID-19 cases remain low in area counties Tuesday
Mar. 2—MANKATO — Area counties combined for 23 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases Tuesday, one of the smallest daily upticks so far in 2021.
Tuesdays and Mondays usually have lower case numbers due to reporting lags from the weekend. Last week followed a similar pattern of low totals to begin the workweek.
The nine south-central Minnesota counties again had no new COVID deaths confirmed Tuesday, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
South-central Minnesota's COVID death toll remains at 212. There were four COVID deaths reported statewide, however, raising Minnesota's toll to 6,490.
The 23 new cases in the area included seven in Blue Earth County and five in Nicollet County. Sibley County was the sole one in the south-central region without at least one new case Tuesday.
The full list of newly confirmed cases by county includes:
Blue Earth County — 7
Nicollet County — 5
Le Sueur County — 3
Brown County — 3
Martin County — 2
Waseca County — 1
Watonwan County — 1
Faribault County — 1
Statewide, vaccination traction may finally be here.
Officials had been hoping the arrival of shipments delayed by the recent nationwide cold snap atop the state's regular allotment of doses would start to surface in daily vaccination counts. That appears to be happening.
The health department on Tuesday reported about 12,000 new vaccinations in Minnesota, significantly higher than the prior Tuesday.
Tuesdays are typically low reporting days for vaccinations as well, but the trend line is headed in the right direction. The seven-day rolling average is running at nearly 37,000 a day, the highest it's been since vaccinations began in late December.
About 16.3% of Minnesotans age 16 and older — more than 900,000 people — had received at least one dose as of Tuesday's update, with about 8.5% completely vaccinated.
For south-central Minnesota, a total of 38,215 area residents received first doses as of Tuesday's update. It equals about 16.4% of the population. A total of 17,947 residents have received second doses, or 7.7% of the population.
Fifty-three percent of Minnesotans 65 and older have received at least one shot currently, according to health department calculations. That's important since Gov. Tim Walz has said the state will expand vaccination eligibility when 70% of that population gets first doses.
Minnesota currently ranks 16th among states in doses administered per 100,000 people, according to data collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There's reason to believe the vaccination rate might continue to rise with the addition of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one shot. More than 45,000 doses of the newly approved vaccine should be distributed in Minnesota this week.
"We view Johnson & Johnson as a game-changer that will help us to quickly provide immunity to even more Minnesotans," Kris Ehresmann, the state's infectious disease director, told reporters Tuesday.
While the pace of vaccinations is picking up, Minnesota's COVID numbers continue to show the state holding fairly steady.
Hospitalization rates remain encouraging at levels last seen before the late-fall surge in cases. The health department on Tuesday reported 243 people in Minnesota hospitals with COVID, with 57 needing intensive care, staying down at relatively low levels.
Known, active cases came in at just under 7,000, continuing a trend that stayed fairly stable through February and remains down dramatically from late November and early December, when active cases hovered around 50,000.
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