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Health
Craig Helmstetter and Alyson Clary

COVID-19 trends are up and bird flu continues to increase in Minnesota

20150429_042815turkey02_53
The number of domestic birds impacted by highly pathogenic avian influenza so far this year now exceeds 20 million nationally.
Jennifer Simonson | MPR News

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On Wednesday evening the White House announced that President Joe Biden had tested positive for COVID-19. Apparently, many Minnesotans can report the same, with COVID-19 activity on the rise in recent weeks. 

COVID hospitalizations for the state are higher now than they were at this time of year in both 2023 and 2021. About 20 Minnesotans per day are now being admitted to the state’s hospitals with COVID-19, more than twice the daily average just one month ago and back up to the COVID hospitalization levels reported in March.

Increasing hospitalizations are usually followed by increases in mortality, but that has not been the case so far with the recent COVID increase. The Minnesota Department of Health is reporting that five or fewer people have died from COVID-19 in each of the past five weeks, which is close to a low point since the pandemic began.

COVID-19 levels detected in Minnesota’s wastewater, however, continue to rise. The latest data show a 46 percent increase in COVID-19 levels measured in wastewater statewide from the prior week, as of July 10. Each of the state’s eight regions in the University of Minnesota’s ongoing study show a weekly and monthly increase in measured COVID-19 levels in wastewater.

The increases vary by region. In the case of weekly increases, the range is 4 percent (in the study’s North West region) to 96 percent (in the study’s South West region). For monthly increases, the lowest percent change is 57 percent (in the study’s South East region) to 279 percent (in the study’s North East region).

The increase in COVID-19 activity coincides with the dominance of the so-called “FLiRT” variants, as well as the newer LB.1 variant. While the current 2023-24 COVID-19 vaccine formulation appears to offer some protection against these newer variants, the upcoming 2024-25 vaccine should offer even greater protection from severe illness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending that all Americans over 6 months of age get one dose of the new COVID-19 vaccine this fall. The new vaccine may be available as early as August. 

Avian influenza continues to spread

Among the other health-related trends we are tracking: Newly updated data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that the number of domestic birds impacted by highly pathogenic avian influenza so far this year now exceeds 20 million nationally. The number of impacted birds in Minnesota’s commercial and backyard flocks now exceeds 2 million.  

Dating back to the beginning of the current outbreak in February 2022, more flocks have been impacted in Minnesota than any other state — although more individual birds have been impacted in Iowa and Ohio. Minnesota also leads in number of flocks impacted in the past 30 days, although far more birds have been recently impacted in Colorado. 

While current strains of avian influenza are not believed to pose much of a threat to humans, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Disease Research and Policy reported earlier this week that five Coloradans were recently infected. Unlike the handful of other human infections detected earlier this year, which were among dairy workers, these cases appear to be from working directly with poultry.  

In all cases detected so far, the symptoms were relatively mild and none have resulted in additional human-to-human infection. 

Additional measles cases reported 

The Minnesota Department of Health is now reporting 12 confirmed cases of measles in the state so far this year, up from the six that were on record in the state last month. Seven of the cases are from “exposure outside the U.S.” and the other five are directly linked to outside exposure.  

Nationally, 16 additional cases were confirmed in June, bringing the yearly total to 167. Only six months into the year, 2024 already ranks as the seventh highest in number of measles cases so far this century according to data from the CDC.