As the Minnesota Department of Health posts updates on coronavirus testing, cases and hospitalizations from the disease, MinnPost will update the charts and maps below with the latest data.
This page was last updated on April 3, 2020 at 11:11 am.
Overall
| Number tested* by MDH public lab: | 8,682 |
| Number tested* by external labs: | 15,545 |
| Confirmed cases: | 789 |
| Number hospitalized overall: | 156 |
| Number currently hospitalized: | 86 |
| Number in intensive care: | 40 |
| Deaths: | 22 |
*Number of patients tested is approximate.
Total positive COVID-19 tests (cumulative) in Minnesota by day
New positive COVID-19 tests in Minnesota by day
Total tested (cumulative) for COVID-19 by day
Note: total tested is approximate. Data from labs other than the MDH Public Health lab is not available prior to March 25.
Positive COVID-19 tests by Minnesota county
Note: This map only represents laboratory-tested positive COVID-19 cases. Due to lack of testing, the true
number and spread of cases is likely much greater. Total cases in this map may not equal the total number of positive tests in Minnesota overall.
Comments (27)
Thank you for this clear dashboard of what is going on.
If you hover your mouse above the bars, it displays the numbers each day, then just simple math. (That’s on my PC, not sure what a iPhone or Android would do).
Thank you for doing this!
This is really useful. I’m guessing the data aren’t available, but it would be great to have an additional chart of Tests Administered per Day to give more context to these numbers.
Thanks for the update!
See below. I am getting my data from two links on twincities.com, which take me to the MDH data tables:
https://www.twincities.com/coronavirus-mn/cases-map/
There are a lot of different sites displaying data for the world, for the country, for the state. I like the cleanness and simpleness of this site the best. Keep up the great work!
I have been sharing word of the MinnPost Coronavirus Update with friends.
Thank you, Tom and Greta. Good work!
With the Mayo lab now on stream and assisting, does the (can the) “total tested” graph include those figures as well?
Thanks so much for keeping us informed.
Please post the number of new people hospitalized on a daily basis. Given the ever changing protocol for testing that number is fairly irrelevant. The number of hospitalizations is our only concern in this.
Good work. As we don’t know what fraction of cases are being caught by testing, it seems like hospitalizations is our best measure of the spread. Only a fraction of cases require hospitalization, but a fairly constant fraction. A graph of current and total hospitalizations would give the clearest picture of the spread.
Make an attempt to get and include here all testing done, and all test results. Include all the private lab testing. From the get-go, so there’s a context. Only lazy reporting would not include all tests.
Otherwise these figures are showing much less covid19 than Minnesota actually has.
In most states it is estimated that actual infection rates are 20-30 times known test results. Remember, we are not including people who were sent home and told they likely had it, but are not being tested. We actually have WAY more cases than officially recorded.
At some point we’re going to need broader population-based testing, which will probably involve blood draws to figure out who is actually exposed. There’s a website called CovidActnow.com That gives projections overtime including hospitalizations, percent of the population infected and deaths. South Korea has done a large population based testing program, which would’ve been nice but given our various government responses was unlikely to impossible.
For us to get an idea of how widespread this is and to make it accurate projections of what’s going to happen we’re gonna have to know the real numbers instead of projections of who is infected. The above mentioned website says that with nothing or social distancing 70% of the people in MN will be infected, with hospitalization and death numbers very high, depending on isolation strategies. Interestingly enough social distancing does not reduce the number of people infected but it does reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths dramatically. The peak of this pandemic will hit in early April, so we are just starting.
Reason for all the government actions Is to mainly protect the hospital and healthcare system from overloading. As an example, if Texas continues its current path, they will see as many as several million hospitalizations and death as high as 600,000. This is getting real serious, don’t let up your guard
Correcting my comment yesterday. I put up daily cumulative data instead of daily new data. Given some spikes in the data, a rolling average of new cases over new tests is probably more informative. Here is the 7-day rolling average, from my massage of Minn. Dept. of Health data, for 7 days ending on each of the following dates. As you can see, there is an upward trend that reflects the anticipated bell curve of this pandemic:
Date 7-day avg % positive tests
12-Mar 2.68%
13-Mar 2.39%
14-Mar 2.48%
15-Mar 2.87%
16-Mar 2.57%
17-Mar 2.82%
18-Mar 2.98%
19-Mar 2.99%
20-Mar 3.48%
21-Mar 3.88%
22-Mar 4.72%
23-Mar 5.31%
24-Mar 5.63%
25-Mar 5.83%
You only present a subset of the data. Without the actual data no one else can validate your analysis. I suspect your data is flawed. Anyone can find the public data here (including snapshots from MDH web site):
https://covidtracking.com/data/state/minnesota/#history
There are some major disconnects with this data. Apparently prior to 3/23, MDH only reported positive test results from private labs and not negative test results. Amazingly on 3/23 they recorded 66 positives and zero negatives! Starting on 3/25 MDH reported all tests at private labs. As you can see the %pos went back down.
The bottom line is only one out of every 40 people tested so far in MN is positive. 39 are negative. I do not understand why that justifies a shelter-in-place order. My sibling who is a lawyer and lives in another state told me the order may be required to unlock Federal aid.
Please explain why your analysis is different than mine. I really would like to understand it.
MN cumul data
March #pos #tested %pos
28 441 16129 2.7%
27 398 14003 2.8%
26 346 12950 2.7%
25 287 11475 2.5%
24 262 5812 4.5%
23 235 4746 5.0%
22 169 4680 3.6%
21 137 4090 3.3%
20 115 3856 3.0%
19 89 3038 2.9%
18 77 2762 2.8%
17 60 2336 2.6%
16 54 1893 2.9%
15 35 1422 2.5%
14 21 868 2.4%
13 14 555 2.5%
daily data
March #pos #tested %pos 7 day %pos avg
28 43 2126 2.0% 2.5%
27 52 1053 4.9% 2.8%
26 59 1475 4.0% 2.6%
25 25 5663 0.4% 2.4%
24 27 1066 2.5% 5.8%
23 66 66 100.0% 6.3%
22 32 590 5.4% 4.1%
21 22 234 9.4% 3.6%
20 26 818 3.2% 3.1%
19 12 276 4.3% 3.0%
18 17 426 4.0%
17 6 443 1.4%
16 19 471 4.0%
15 14 554 2.5%
14 7 313 2.2%
Oops should be 1 out of 36 (not 40).
Thanks. I consider any attempt at a trend line (what’s the current slope of the curve?) to be helpful. I don’t see that much difference in the two lists, and I fully agree that what we have is only a rough indicator. Among other factors, the persons tested are a selected population. Like yourself, I also have had to go back and make some corrections.
Perhaps these data, as they come in, will give us some confirmation of (or challenges to) the recently released MDH modeling. I also noticed the big uptick in the :”tested” numbers 3/24 and forward and have not had a good explanation of them. But here is my updated chart of the 7-day rolling averages, with that late March bump in full view:
Date 7-day avg % positive tests
12-Mar 3.17%
13-Mar 2.49%
14-Mar 2.44%
15-Mar 2.46%
16-Mar 2.87%
17-Mar 2.59%
18-Mar 2.83%
19-Mar 2.94%
20-Mar 3.06%
21-Mar 3.60%
22-Mar 4.11%
23-Mar 4.80%
24-Mar 5.81%
25-Mar 2.41%
26-Mar 2.59%
27-Mar 2.79%
28-Mar 2.53%
29-Mar 2.57%
30-Mar 2.59%
This is very helpful, especially the number of new cases reported each day.
At some point, there will be a consistent downward trend on that number, which will be important.
I watched the Governor’s speech today declaring that we need another two weeks to stay at home. That’s fine, but he mentioned the idea that, over the next 12-18 months, most (40-80%) Minnesotans will get this virus. He has said this before and it’s very confusing to me.
I have read much about this virus and I have yet to hear any other official say anything remotely like this. If 40% of Minnesotans get this virus in the next 18 months, and 5% of cases require ICU support, that’s 112,000 people (5.6M x .4 x .05) that will need to use the ICU during that time period. We currently have about 250 ICU beds in the state.
If true, this is a monumental gap and seems way off from what I have read about in other regions. No one in the media seems to be questioning his assertion on this point. Can someone offer some clarity on this?
I can’t help you any more with the stats; I am an amateur at it and my best offering so far is in my comment above. But note that NY Governor Cuomo has made a similar prediction for the people in his state:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-apex-andrew-cuomo.html
I think the problem in your chain of assumptions is the 5% needing ICU. Most of the serious hospital stays are old and vulnerable. Yes I understand some young get admitted, but its a much much smaller % and we don’t have much info on their underlying health. We are still working with very small #’s as a % of the data set and extrapolating across the whole population strikes me as poor science at best and sensationalism to justify draconian action at worst. My sense is the 40% number came from CDC talking about what would happen with little mitigating actions. And if its 40% over the next year and a half, and if it goes more into the general healthy population, I take the WAY under on 5% needing hospital stay.
Thanks for the reply. I agree that this is so new and we’re dealing with small sets of data, which makes extrapolation very difficult. It’s almost like expecting the NTSB to determine the cause of a plane crash while the plane is still in the air. The NTSB needs months, and sometimes years, to determine the full picture and I suspect the same thing will be needed here.
Take you number, 112000 needing hospitalization. Divide by 18 month. Divide again by 30 days/month. You get a little over 20. I know that’s super rough, but that’s not a crazy number. As long as everyone doesn’t end up in the hospital at the same time . . .
200 not 20
General comment – hospital stays over time and ICU stays (both for CV patients) would be useful.
These are excellent. Any chance we could have a graph of active cases in MN? In other words, confirmed cases minus recoveries? In looking at another MN COVID-19 tracking website, I am finding that the recoveries are keeping pace with new cases, is this correct?