Thread by @dhmontgomery

Remember we’re still being impacted by Thanksgiving’s aftershocks on #COVID19 reporting. Last Monday, for example, had an abnormally low positivity due to the holiday, so today’s 7-day averages will spike. But last Tuesday had a really high positivity, so they’ll fall tomorrow.

So by report date, MN’s 7-day average positivity rate spiked to over 11% today, the highest all year.

This is to a significant degree artificial, and will fall tomorrow. But even setting aside reporting issues we’re clearly in an upturn right now.

Here, for example, is positivity rate by sample date. This has a lag of up to a week, but all indications are we’re heading upward, driven by post-Thanksgiving infections.

Note this is a near-mirror of a brief spike we had LAST year right after Thanksgiving.

Nearly 7,000 Minnesotans were diagnosed with #COVID19 by cases taken last Monday (not even counting any home tests, which aren’t tracked), the highest one-day figure all year.

The big unknown: how long will this spike last? Is this just going to be a brief post-Thanksgiving spike that will quickly fade? Or is this being driven by deeper factors, and will persist for weeks?

The frustrating thing: we’ve now had two different false peaks in this wave (plus a third period back in early August when growth slowed way down like we were about to peak, before accelerating again).

#COVID19 hospital bed use continues to climb, to nearly 85% of the Fall 2020 peak levels.

Vaccination rates continue to inch upward. We should cross 70% of the total population with at least one dose in a few days.

Vaccinations are still rising for 5-11-year-olds, but they’re very clearly now trailing the rate at which 12-15-year-olds got vaccinated after they first became eligible.

My kingdom for some clean data right now…