Minnesota COVID-19 cases set monthly record in January

For now, all the leading indicators for pandemic activity in Minnesota — whether it’s COVID cases, the statewide positivity rate or patients in hospitals and intensive care — are trending favorably, said Dr. Dan Hoody, the interim chief medical officer at Hennepin Healthcare.

Hospitals aren’t out of the woods, Hoody said, because staff outages remain higher than they were in previous surges. Even so, he said it was “reassuring to think that in the coming weeks — with both the downstream impact on acute care from all these favorable leading indicators coming to fruition, as well as more staff coming back into the ranks — that we should expect patient flow and acute care access to continue to improve.”