State health officials warn of rising COVID case numbers from the delta variant, but are not speculating whether broad restrictions will again be needed in Minnesota. Commissioner Jan Malcolm says the best way to avoid it, is more Minnesotans getting vaccinated.
Malcolm, the Director of the Minnesota Department of Health, states, “Things look like they could go one way or another, in terms of whether the variants will continue to kind of overcome the walls of defense, or whether we can build those walls higher, to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
66.5 percent of eligible Minnesotans age 12 and above have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. State officials warn that unvaccinated individuals are especially vulnerable to the rapidly growing variant of the disease. The state’s case-positive rate is 2.3 percent, up from just over one percent at the end of June and a little less than halfway to the five-percent caution threshold.