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COVID-19
Hannah Yang

Minnesota sees increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations, experts say they’re not surprised

A machine in the hallway of a hospital.
An ECMO machine, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, sits in the hallway of a medical ICU unit at St. Mary's Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Patients severely ill with COVID-19 can be put on ECMO, which oxygenates their blood and makes the work of the heart and lungs easier.
Evan Frost | MPR News 2020

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Minnesota has seen an upward trend of hospitalizations from COVID-19, and it’s a little earlier than last year, when hospitalizations started to increase later in the summer toward the end of August, according to APM Research Lab data. 

Minnesota Department of Health experts still don’t have enough data to find a clear pattern or trend for the virus. Senior epidemiologist Keeley Morris said Minnesota does tend to experience a “summer increase” and that it appeared that the number of cases happened earlier this season. 

“But certainly not something that’s so out of the ordinary that it’s really taken us by surprise,” Morris said. “It’s something that we sort of expected and we just don’t have enough pattern yet to know exactly which month that’s going to happen year after year.”

MDH is monitoring the increased number of cases, and though they’re not surprised by the uptick, they’re concerned for people who are at higher risk for severe disease. Mostly because when there’s increased hospitalizations, there’s more disease transmission.

MDH said people who are over the age of 65, severely immunocompromised or have underlying medical conditions are at a higher risk. Health officials urge them to reach out to their health providers if they start feeling sick so they can take antiviral treatments to reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death. 

Morris said they’re also monitoring whether Minnesota is experiencing a variant that’s more severe or more likely to lead to hospitalizations, which currently doesn’t seem to be the case. 

“These variants are just much better at evading immunity that people have from prior vaccinations or prior infections,” she said. “So, we started to see an increase in cases because there’s more transmission happening from person to person as a result of these new variants emerging. But, thankfully, so far, we haven’t seen that increase in severity, which would be cause for concern, but has not happened to this point.”

As MDH continues to track the virus, Morris said there are still unknowns about COVID-19, though there seemed to be a roughly six to eight-month pattern from when people’s immunity wanes from the last vaccination or last time they contracted the virus, and seeing another increase in cases, infections, hospitalizations and deaths. 

Morris added there would be pretty significant increases in the winter when people move indoors, and then smaller increases around the summer, when immunity starts to wane from vaccination and previous infection. 

“This year in particular, we’ve had a very hot summer, we’ve had a lot of wet weather and we didn’t see a high uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations last fall, so it’s possible that the combination of all those factors is leading to a little bit of an earlier or higher increase than we’ve seen in the past,” she said. “But, I don’t think there’s anything particularly shocking or unexpected about what we’re experiencing now.”

Although COVID-19 from the policy perspective isn’t on the forefront, MDH continues to track the virus daily and emphasizes that the virus is “absolutely still with us” as it continues to see transmission of the disease. Morris encourages individuals to seek testing if they experience symptoms as new variants emerge, which is especially critical for those at highest risk for severe disease. 

Antiviral medications are most effective within the first five days of developing symptoms, Morris adds, and reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death. She said the public should continue washing hands, staying home when sick to prevent transmission of COVID-19 and to keep an eye out for new vaccines releasing this fall. 

“With the new formulation coming out in the fall, it’s really important to sort of weigh out the benefits of being vaccinated now and the protection you might get from that, over the benefits of waiting until a vaccine that’s available later this year and is a little more closely matched to the variants that are circulating now,” she said. “We just encourage folks to weigh that out with their health care provider about what’s the best approach for them.”