MDH: State Preparing for Omicron Variant, COVID Cases Nearing One Million

(KNSI) – During a statewide conference call Wednesday afternoon, Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm shared the latest COVID-19 numbers.

“Today, Minnesota is reporting an additional 3580 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID 19 and 100 deaths. Important to note that the case number is truly a one-day number. But keep in mind that the total of 100 deaths reflects multiple days of reports coming out of the Thanksgiving weekend. We now are at a cumulative total of 915,942 cases and 9482 Minnesota lives lost to COVID-19.”

And while hospital beds continue to be in short supply statewide, Commissioner Malcolm was satisfied with the state’s vaccination rates.

“Fortunately, there are a lot of Minnesotans getting vaccinated, and that really does help to reduce that pressure on our healthcare sector. We now have 71.3% of all Minnesotans age 12 and up who have completed their vaccine series, the numbers are slightly higher if you just look at those who received at least one dose. But, especially with the delta wave, we know how important it is for full protection to have the complete series.”

The first American case of the Omicron variant surfaced in California Wednesday, and Commissioner Malcolm was asked how prepared the state of Minnesota was for this new wave.

“We should be prepared for Omicron to show up in Minnesota at some point. Fortunately, our state is positioned quite well to monitor for these kinds of new variants better than many other states. In fact, because we’ve built one of the nation’s strongest variant surveillance systems, and strong genomic sequencing capacity … and having a strong system like this in place in our state makes it more likely that if the variant is here, we will find it and find it quickly.”

KNSI’s Jeff McMahon contributed to the story.

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