REGIONAL- With less than half of Minnesotans up to date on their COVID vaccinations and recommended boosters, cases are slowly but steadily on the rise as a new and still more transmissible Omicron variant has appeared in the state.
Minnesota averaged just over 1,300 new cases per day this past week, nearly double the daily case average of 724 in mid-April, according to Minnesota Department of Health data. More than 90 percent of those cases are attributed to the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, which has been estimated to be 50 to 60 percent more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.
Increases have been noted in St. Louis County as well, with the northern portion of the county trending back up after a period of decline. Notably, four of the six North Country zip codes monitored by the Timberjay had a combined seven cases reported last week. Two weeks ago, only two cases were reported in the region, both in Embarrass.
COVID hospitalizations have also increased, but the admissions and severity of illness are running lower than at other times during the pandemic. Hospitals in northeastern Minnesota reported 21 non-ICU and three ICU patients with COVID-19 on Monday. Statewide, only seven percent of hospitalized COVID patients were in intensive care, the lowest percentage of the pandemic thus far.
At the beginning of the Delta wave of the pandemic last fall, health officials frequently used the phrase “pandemic of the unvaccinated” to describe the alarming rise in COVID cases, driven primarily by those who had shunned getting any of the three widely-available vaccines. However, as the state moved through the peak of the Delta wave and subsequent Omicron wave, it has become clear that the effectiveness of the initial vaccines has waned and that vaccinated Minnesotans no longer have much additional protection against the latest variants.
Seven-out-of-ten Minnesotans aged five and over (3.7 million) have completed an initial vaccination series. And, with what the medical community has learned about waning vaccine immunity and with more highly contagious variants of the virus circulating, state health officials say they aren’t surprised to see little difference now in infection rates between the vaccinated or the unvaccinated.
Demand for vaccinations and boosters was relatively flat in April, according to the state’s vaccine data dashboard. The percentage of people with first doses, a completed initial series, and “up to date” with recommended boosters all barely budged, all posting miniscule increases of less than one percent.
Breakthrough data doesn’t yet differentiate between those who are “fully vaccinated” and those who have had the additional booster shots, but fully vaccinated individuals who contract COVID-19 continue to have better outcomes than unvaccinated individuals. Those benefits become clearer among older residents, who are nine times less likely to be hospitalized and seven to ten times less likely to die as a result of COVID than unvaccinated seniors.
What’s coming
Rising case levels will affect more areas in the state in the coming weeks as the overall pattern of spread projected by modeling from the Mayo Clinic mirrors that of previous waves, although actual case numbers aren’t anticipated to approach those of past waves.
Twenty-one counties had average daily case levels per 100,000 of between 25 and 50 on May 1. By May 14, Mayo projects that 45 counties, including St. Louis County, will have elevated case levels, with doubling or tripling of rates in those identified on May 1.
A new Omicron subvariant, is also likely to start claiming an increasing share of new cases. BA.2.12.1 was responsible for 29 percent of new coronavirus infections around the country as of mid-April, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 19 percent of cases the week prior and 14 percent of infections the first week in April. BA.2.12.1 has replaced BA.2 as the dominant cause of COVID infections in the New York-New Jersey area.
Recent wastewater testing in the Twin Cities has confirmed BA.2.12.1 is in Minnesota, and the subvariant is even more highly transmissible than BA.2 by an estimated 25 percent. While no estimate of its prevalence can currently be calculated, increases in other areas of the country will likely be mirrored in coming weeks in Minnesota.