Minnesota reports 94 COVID-19 deaths Friday as cases, hospitalizations continue to fall

(FOX 9) - Minnesota reported 94 additional deaths attributed to COVID-19 Friday, the second most reported in a single day to date.

This is the third consecutive day the Minnesota Department of Health has reported more than 80 COVID-19 deaths. Health officials have said deaths lag cases by a couple of weeks, so the peak in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations Minnesota saw in late November is resulting in the higher death rates the state is seeing this week.

Gov. Tim Walz is holding a 2 p.m. news conference on Friday with Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm and health care professionals to provide an update on the state's COVID-19 situation. You can watch the news conference live on FOX 9 and streaming at fox9.com/live.

Forty-five of the 94 newly reported deaths were in the Twin Cities metro while the rest were in Greater Minnesota. The deaths included two people in their 30s, one a resident of Anoka County and the other of Nicollet County.

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Of the 94 deaths, 52 were in long-term care or assisted living facilities.

A total of 4,292 people in Minnesota have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Nearly 700 of those deaths have been reported in December.
MDH also reported 3,773 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday out of 58,497 completed tests—a 6.5% positivity rate, three percentage points below the state’s seven-day moving average positivity rate.

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Even with vaccines on the way, local health experts are warning Minnesota residents, now is not the time to let your guard down.

So far, Minnesota has not seen a spike in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday.

There have been 370,968 COVID-19 cases reported in Minnesota to date. Over 43,400 of those are considered active cases that require the infected person to isolate.

According to the latest MDH data, there are 1,461 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota, 343 of whom are in the ICU. In comparison, a week ago there were 1,679 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 367 of whom were in the ICU.

2 more Minnesota prison inmates die from COVID-19

Two more Minnesota inmates have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

The two inmates both died Thursday at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. One was a 66-year-old man from the Faribault prison and the other was a 63-year-old man from the Moose Lake prison. These deaths marked the fourth COVID-19 death from the Faribault facility and the first from the Moose Lake facility.

There have now been eight COVID-related deaths in the state's prison system since the pandemic began.