COVID’s September plateau continues into October

Last week we reported that Minnesota has averaged five COVID-19-related deaths on daily basis since May. For essentially the most recent complete week of knowledge, ending Sept. 15, that average ticked up to only over six deaths per day. Low relative to other points within the pandemic, but still far too many.

In light of COVID’s continued death toll, today’s morning missive from the Recent York Times, entitled “The underuse of COVID treatments is resulting in many unnecessary deaths” caught our attention. In it, David Leonhard cites several experts and studies indicating that Paxlovid, specifically, is each a wildly successful and a widely under-used COVID treatment.

For instance, Epic Research’s evaluation of 568,000 patients found that the death rate for COVID patients who didn’t get the drug was greater than 4 time higher than those that did—and that “only about 25 percent of patients eligible to receive Paxlovid actually did, though the drug is widely available and free for patients.”

If you happen to or a loved one has COVID and you’re enthusiastic about pursuing Paxlovid treatment chances are you’ll want to seek the advice of guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Baseline requirements are that the patient have to be no less than 12 and that treatment should start inside the first five days of symptoms. The CDC encourages people to either seek the advice of their healthcare provider or visit a Test to Treat location.”

In fact, experts also recommend staying up-to-date on COVID boosters — and the most recent Department of Health Data show that only 6.1 percent of Minnesotans are currently up-to-date(a lot of us have yet to receive the bivalent booster). And regular in-home testing can assist discover early and even asymptomatic cases in order that we are able to take steps to avoid passing COVID to others. Minnesotans can still access as much as 12 rapid at-home COVID-19 tests without cost.

You could need to look into vaccines or testing more often especially for those who are within the northern portion of the state, where cases and wastewater data indicate a small increasing trend in COVID in recent weeks. Read on for specifics, in addition to information on which counties CDC is currently recommending masking indoors.

Cases and hospitalizations mostly hold regular or decline from last week

Officially reported COVID-19 cases in Minnesota have for essentially the most part plateaued for the last several weeks, but at lower rates than the plateau we saw earlier this summer. In August, case rates in Minnesota regions were between 150 and 200 weekly cases per 100,000 residents. Now, case rates are within the 100 to 150 range, and in most regions closer to the 100 mark. Northern Minnesota rates point to some cause for concern, with rates which have recently increased and are higher than other regions.

Hospitalizations provide a somewhat more reliable metric when comparing to past years. At this point in 2020 and 2021, hospitalizations were increasing quickly. But thus far this fall, hospitalizations proceed to say no.  

Deaths also look like on the decline in comparison with August, although this data takes longer to are available in.

Wastewater: COVID levels dropping or flat in most parts of Minnesota, but not the northeast

Probably the most recent wastewater evaluation within the state, from the Metropolitan Council and the University of Minnesota’s Genomic Center, shows virtually unchanged COVID levels as measured in samples from the Metro wastewater treatment plant for the week ending Oct. 3. Their weekly summary adds “the whole load has decreased by 43 percent since June 21, but there was no significant trend, up or down, for the past three weeks.”

Along with recent stability in overall COVID-19 levels measured by this project, the composition of the variants can be unchanged: “BA.5 constituted 90 percent of the viral RNA entering Metro, and BA.4 and BA.2.75 represented six percent and two percent, respectively, of the whole viral RNA load.”

Similarly, via e-mail, the Minnesota Department of Health reports that since late August, nine percent of the COVID cases they’ve sequenced are BA.4 and just one percent are traceable to BA.2 sublineages (including only 11 cases of BA.2.75 and five total cases of BA.2.75.2). This is sweet news in that BA.2.75’s close relative, BA.2.75.2, may have the option to evade vaccine immunity and will not reply to antiviral treatments.

The newest data out of the University of Minnesota’s Wastewater SARS-CoV2 Surveillance Study, tracking data from seven regions, once more shows largely excellent news. As of Sept. 25, COVID levels were dropping in most places, most notably within the study’s northwest and southwest regions where levels dropped significantly over each the past month and the past week.

Measured levels of COVID-19 are rising within the study’s sampling from the six North East wastewater plants, positioned in Crow Wing, Koochiching, Pine and St. Louis counties. That is consistent with increasing cases in northeastern Minnesota as shown in the primary graph.

Residents of Brown, Chippewa, Clearwater, Koochiching, Lac qui Parle and Brown counties should mask up when in public indoor settings in line with guidance related to the CDC’s latest “Community Level” rankings. Those rankings place a further 19 counties, the biggest of which is St. Louis County, on a medium-level watch list.

Many of the state’s major population centers — including the Twin Cities, St. Cloud and Rochester — are again low-risk in line with the CDC’s community level rankings this week.

Despite the relatively green “Community Level” map, the CDC also notes that 47 of Minnesota’s 87 counties meet or exceed their threshold for prime COVID-19 transmission of no less than 100 cases per 100,000 during the last week. This includes five Minnesota counties that exceeded a weekly rate of 250 per 100,000: Chippewa, Red Lake, Aitkin and Koochiching.