Minnesota State Wire

Minnesota finds itself at 438 deaths per million making it 21st in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

 The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down. 

Minnesota’s deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state has stayed below 120 people per million, which isn’t anywhere near increased case numbers. 

 “Another of these supposedly "cautionary tales" in the upper midwest. Minnesota has a death rate that is 1/2 that of Massachusetts, and 1/4 that of New York,” the commentary states. “At no point have they exceeded even 120. Minnesota's daily/deaths/million have never exceeded 5/day, and never at any point exceeded those of Massachusetts. Currently, Minnesota has ostensibly 2.5 x the cases of Massachusetts, yet a lower daily death rate, and similar hospitalizations. All of this with a 6% unemployment rate, and an "open" rating for their economy.”

 Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55 percent, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths.

 Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data when tracking than cases are. 

With COVID-19 testing up 70 percent since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.