According to the University of Minnesota’s ongoing wastewater surveillance study, COVID-19 levels are low across the state. The most recent reportable data, from June 18, shows a weekly increase only in the study’s Southwest region, and that increase is very minor in terms of the actual COVID-19 material.

The Metropolitan Council’s joint project with the University of Minnesota’s Genomics Center to monitor COVID-19 levels at the state’s largest wastewater treatment plant also shows continued low levels, and no worrying dramatic changes in the types of COVID variants detected.

According to the latest weekly data from the Minnesota Department of Health, an average of only five people per day entered the state’s hospitals with COVID-19 in the week ending June 29, and an average of 1.14 people died at least partially due to COVID-19 each day in the week ending June 15. 

Notably, in the first half of June, the health department reported five days with zero COVID-19 deaths, a welcome increase from four zero-death days during the entire month of May and two in April. Prior to that, the state had not seen a zero-COVID-deaths day since June 2022.  

These latest trends mirror the longer-term, national decline in COVID-19 mortality that we reported in last week’s Color of Coronavirus update. Based on the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that report showed April had “the lowest monthly death toll since the beginning of the pandemic,” and “deaths decreased across all racial and ethnic groups.”  

Over the course of the pandemic Minnesota’s age-adjusted COVID-19 death rates continue to be somewhat lower than average among white, Black and especially Latino Americans. But the state’s rates are notably higher among both Asian and Indigenous Americans — with the latter group having by far the highest COVID-19 death rate among the major racial and ethnic groups both in Minnesota and the U.S.  

Public health officials continue to point to the COVID-19 vaccine as a key protection against severe illness and death. The Minnesota Department of Health reports that 26.9% of Minnesotans are now up to date with COVID-19 vaccination, including 68% of those age 65 and older. 

Firearm deaths up nationally in recent years, but comparatively lower in Minnesota 

On Independence Day, NPR reported “July has already seen 11 mass shootings.” National and even state data on shootings takes some time to assemble, but according to a recent report from Pew Research, CDC data show that “more Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record.”  

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death among children ages 1 to 19 in 2020. 

How does Minnesota compare? Minnesota’s overall gun death rate is lower than the national average, according to a new report by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. 

National data shows that Minnesota had a relatively low age-adjusted firearm death rate of 9.99 per 100,000 in 2021, ranking 42nd in the country. The national gun death rate was 14.6, with states such as California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire ranking even lower than Minnesota. Mississippi recorded the highest age-adjusted gun rate in the country at 33.92 per 100,000. 

The Center also reported Minnesota had a low age-adjusted suicide by firearm rate, 6.59 per 100,000, ranking 41st in the nation. The national suicide by firearm rate in 2021 was 7.5. The state’s age-adjusted firearm homicide rate was also low, 3.1 per 100,000, compared to 6.7 nationally. 

In May Gov. Tim Walz signed into law firearms provisions intended to further decrease gun-related injuries and deaths in Minnesota. As reported by MPR News at the time, the law includes “red flag” protections designed to remove firearms from those deemed a danger to themselves or others and also expands criminal background checks to private transfers of firearms

Abortions to nonresidents up in Minnesota in 2022 

On the heels of some great reporting on abortion one year after the historic Dobbs decision, our last health data roundup included a look at state-to-state abortion comparisons using the most recent available national data, from 2020 (Minnesota was generally toward the middle of the pack).  

Since then, the Minnesota Department of Health released its report on abortions in 2022. As covered by MinnPost’s Walker Orenstein, “(t)here was a 20 percent increase in abortions reported to Minnesota health officials last year.” Further, “a greater share of abortions in Minnesota were performed on out-of-state residents than at any point since the state started reporting the data in 1980.” 

While the total number of abortions reported in 2022 (12,175) was the highest reported in more than a decade, it is notable that it is lower than the state’s annual average in the years 2000 to 2009 (13,800), as well as the 1990s (14,800) and 1980s (17,700).  

The uptick in abortions for non-residents in 2022 likely followed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, which triggered abortion restrictions in many states but not Minnesota. Although the Minnesota Department of Health’s report does not specifically indicate the number of abortions for nonresidents by month, there were 5,375 abortions performed January through June, compared to 6,800 in the second half of the year. 

As MinnPost reported, the health department is unlikely to produce as detailed a report on abortions next year due to DFL-backed legislation passed this session, which reduced the amount of abortion-related information collected by the state. 

APM Research Lab’s Rithwik Kalale contributed to this reporting.