MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota is reporting a record 15.6% positivity rate for COVID-19 tests conducted in the seven days ending Dec. 30.
The previous record for positivity rate, a key metric of viral spread, occurred early in the pandemic on April 29, 2020, when testing was limited and mostly targeted at meatpacking plants with outbreaks.
Several factors likely inflated the latest rate, including some reduced COVID-19 testing activity during the holiday week. More people also are turning to at-home rapid antigen tests for precautionary testing before traveling or visiting relatives, making the remaining reportable forms of COVID-19 tests more likely to identify positives.
Even with those influences, health officials said the latest COVID-19 data reflects the rising toll of the fast-spreading omicron variant and a new intense wave of pandemic activity for at least the next month. The state on Friday reported another 33 COVID-19 deaths and 7,833 coronavirus infections, raising its pandemic totals to 10,766 deaths and 1,064,065 infections.
"It's going to be a challenging three weeks or so," Walz said Thursday when he toured a new free state testing site in Anoka. More than 20 are now available across the state — with some only testing people with appointments and others taking walk-ins.
COVID-19 hospitalization trends have been divergent over the past week — with severe cases in intensive care units declining and COVID-19 admissions in general medical-surgical floors increasing. Minnesota hospitals had 1,198 COVID-19 inpatient cases on Thursday, including 269 COVID-19 patients in intensive care.
Health officials urged more people to seek COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, which don't entirely prevent infections but do substantially reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death. Allina Health earlier this week reported that 263 of its 374 COVID-19 hospitalizations involved unvaccinated patients. Of 59 placed on ventilators, 53 were unvaccinated.
The state's hospitals on Thursday reported that COVID and non-COVID cases combined to fill up all but 20 of 1,012 available adult ICU beds in Minnesota. Walz said he is worried that the omicron wave could take up remaining hospital capacity, but he is hopeful that it will follow the patterns in other countries, such as South Africa, of a rapid peak and decline.
A rapid peak can't be assured in the U.S., though, said Dr. Gregory Poland, head of Mayo Clinic's COVID-19 vaccine research group. The environment was very different when omicron took hold in November in South Africa, which had a much later start to its vaccination efforts.
"A lot of South African individuals got infected and had pre-existing immunity, a very different epidemiological context than here in the U.S.," Poland said. "So it's really very difficult to know what is going to happen."
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