Unfortunately, today’s #COVID19 data in MN has yet another backlog situation.
A few days ago the share of MN’s total tests that were antigens spiked upward. Turns out that’s because a bunch of PCR tests weren’t making their way into reports. (People still got notified.)
Even more unfortunately, @mnhealth is going to be updating their TEST totals today — 135,000 backlogged tests from the past week or so — but CASES from this backlog will get updated over the next few days.
So all our messy data just got even more messed up. Buckle up.
The end result: MN’s positivity rate is going to look artificially low today, and this will linger into next week until all these backlogged cases are finally processed. So don’t let this mislead you about how things are going in MN.
Charts coming once I finish sorting through this mess...
OK. I won’t be sharing some of my usual charts today because the underlying data is messed up. Here’s some useful things we can take from the data.
Most of today’s cases (ignoring the backlogged negative tests to the degree we can) came from tests conducted on Sunday and Monday.
In the past, we’ve seen a big spike of positive cases after holidays. And so far (this is incomplete and preliminarily) that came true in a big way the Sunday after NYE. More than 30% of tests conducte that day (so far) have been positive. If this holds, a new daily record.
Want to see what this omicron spike looks like in MN? Here’s the positivity rate by AGE in Minnesota for last week. Over 20% for 20-somethings! Teens and 30-somethings not far behind.
#COVID19 hospital bed use has started to rise again. Especially in the metro, but not exclusively there.
Don’t read too much into the slowdown in new metro-area cases here, because of messy data. I share this to note that parts of rural Minnesota are now starting to see cases rise again, including SE and NW MN.
In summary, all the numbers are messed up. There’s no reason yet to suspect any change to recent trends (massive spike, esp. in the Twin Cities) but I’ll keep watching and try to clean everything up.
The next few reports will be inflated a bit by backlogged cases.
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