Daily COVID-19 Briefing: State dashboard updates, a second remdesivir shipment and an update on long-term care facilities

Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) leaders addressed an array of topics during Tuesday’s COVID-19 daily briefing, including an update on state and national coronavirus numbers, an update on the state’s long-term care facility plan and an update to the state’s COVID-19 website.

The following details each topic discussed during the call:

Updated COVID-19 numbers:

MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm gave an update on COVID-19 numbers locally and around the world. Worldwide, confirmed COVID-19 cases are approaching 4.2 million with 286,000 deaths. In the United States, confirmed cases are now more than 1.34 million with 80,600 deaths. In Minnesota, confirmed cases now total 12,494 with 614 deaths. Additionally, 496 people are currently hospitalized with the disease and 199 are in Intensive Care Units in the state. Testing volume in Minnesota passed the 5,000 mark per day Monday with 5,053 tests being performed between state and private labs. Minnesota also saw its case doubling rate increase from eight days to 10 days over the last week, meaning that cases are doubling in the state every 10 days as opposed to every eight.

Long-term care facility plan:

Last week, state leaders announced a new plan for long-term care facilities to combat COVID-19. Long-term care facilities have been seeing the highest number of confirmed cases in the state and accounted for 501 of the state’s 614 deaths, as of Tuesday. Malcolm reaffirmed that the plan is being implemented but that it may take days or even weeks for it to be fully implemented statewide. The state has received and benefitted from consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in regards to their plan. As part of the plan, the state is urging facilities to have an emergency preparedness plan regarding staffing but the state is working to support facilities in those cases. The state will also offer logistical support to help facilities with expanded testing and will have a stockpile of supplies as a backstop for facilities that may run low.

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Remdesivir shipments:

Malcolm announced that Minnesota received a relatively small second dose of remdesivir and that the doses were being immediately sent out to health care facilities around the state. On May 1, the Food and Drug Administration allowed emergency use of remdesivir, which appears to help some coronavirus patients recover faster. A government-sponsored study showed remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31%, or about four days on average, for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Monday, MDH received a shipment of 1,200 vials. MDH officials said they’re aiming to use the shipments to maximize the number of lives that can be saved by factoring in risk and possible benefits for each patient.

Updated COVID-19 state website:

Director of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at MDH Kris Ehresmann announced that there would be updates to the information given on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard starting Wednesday. The update will include a box with overall case count and information on new cases and deaths each day. This will be located in a more prominent position on the page. Ehresmann emphasized that all data on the site is preliminary and is subject to possible changes at later times, such as if there is a duplicate count. She added that about 70 cases have come off, in total, since the outbreak started. The date from which positive tests are counted is also changing. Instead of using the date at which the state confirmed a case, the date in which the test was taken will be used.