Declining hospitalizations, positivity rate offer hope that Minnesota's third COVID wave is peaking

Both key benchmarks of pandemic activity had been steadily increasing since early March, with the positivity rate rising from 3.4% on March 2 to 7.4% on April 11 before falling back slightly to 7.3%. The 676 COVID-19 cases in Minnesota hospital inpatient beds on Tuesday also tripled the recent low of 210 on March 6. But that number declined slightly from 686 on Monday. State health officials cautioned that it is too soon to conclude that the worst of the latest wave is over in this pandemic — which in total has caused 7,044 COVID-19 deaths and 560,450 known infections in Minnesota. That includes 13 deaths and 1,611 infections reported Wednesday.