Minnesota cases were up among school-age children again last week, and at PA. The state’s health commissioner pointed out that there are “high cases of Covid in Minnesota school children” at this time, and PA’s case number rise comports with that statewide phenomenon. Again, trend lines inside these Yellow Walls are mirroring trend lines outside them. This is unsurprising for Covid or any other virus affecting the larger community and schools in general.
All students, faculty and staff who have had “community cases” of Covid and quarantined have recovered, and are back at school healthy. This too is unsurprising, given the high cumulative rates of recovery from Covid, as documented in MDH data: among children ages 0-4, the recovery (or “survival”) rate is 99.996%; ages 5-9, 99.995%; ages 10-14, 100%; ages 15-19, 99.998%. I have included a new third-party-prepared chart of these data, for all age groups, below.
Also below are new updates of graphs showing Minnesota tests, cases, and hospitalizations over time. One piece of longitudinal data that has not changed is the sustained low level of hospitalizations of children where Covid is a factor; these low numbers are relatively consistent regardless of rising and falling testing and case numbers.
Again, overall, the incidence of late-fall illness at PA does not stand out from prior late autumns 2019 and earlier, and seems to us milder than in some earlier years. It is a pleasure to see the overall wellbeing and joy among kids (and the rest of us) at school this semester. Thank you for supporting our data-driven efforts to provide a normalizing experience for your families.
Please click a chart below to enlarge it.
