COVID-19 cases leapt upward in region this week
Jan. 7—MANKATO — Area counties combined for 1,001 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases this week, a jump from the prior week.
The rise is another sign of the new omicron variant wave hitting south-central Minnesota. The last week had a case uptick, positivity rate increase, sharp rise in hospitalizations statewide and health care providers reported a rush of patients coming in with symptoms.
Reporting delays related to Christmas and New Year's Eve add some haziness to how big the case rise was, but it was 53.8% on the high end.
Compared to this week's 1,001 new cases, the prior week had 651. This week does include some cases that would've usually been reported on New Year's Eve — the Minnesota Department of Health didn't report case updates on holidays — but different methods of factoring them in still results in a jump.
Using data from the health department's weekly update, which covers a timeframe less impacted by holiday reporting delays — area counties had a rise from 698 to 898 over the last two weeks. That equals out to a 28.7% jump in new cases.
The trend follows a period where the region's fall case wave, driven by the delta variant, was plateauing.
If not for the new and more contagious omicron variant, the expectation would've been for cases to continue their downward trend. Instead, the opposite is happening.
The case rise was evident in eight of the nine area counties. Brown County's new cases more than doubled, jumping from 50 to 107.
Blue Earth County's had a rise from 204 to 379 new cases, an 86% spike. Nicollet County's 62% rise stemmed from an uptick from 93 to 151 new cases.
Recent cases include sick children, said a local pediatrician in a statement.
"We are seeing heavy volumes of sick children in our pediatric respiratory clinic with many testing positive for COVID-19," stated Dr. Katie Smentek of Mankato Clinic. "At least once a day, we are following up on a child who is in the hospital or ICU for COVID-19."
Only Sibley County had fewer cases this week compared to last week. It went from 37 to 30 cases.
The counties combined for no new COVID-19 deaths and 157 new cases Friday. There were 33 COVID-19 deaths confirmed statewide, raising Minnesota's pandemic toll to 10,766.
The full list of confirmed cases by county Friday includes:
* Blue Earth County — 64
* Brown County — 21
* Le Sueur County — 20
* Nicollet County — 18
* Sibley County — 14
* Waseca County — 7
* Faribault County — 7
* Martin County — 4
* Watonwan County — 2
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