UNDATED -- Minnesota is a hot spot for COVID. The rate of new COVID infections in Minnesota is the worst in the nation.

Minnesota hospitals are overwhelmed and staff is running on fumes.

Health care providers say that more than 95% of available inpatient hospital beds are filled across the state which has caused backups in some emergency departments, according to health care providers.

Tuesday's update from the Minnesota Department of Health says there are nearly 11,000 new confirmed COVID cases in Minnesota. (This number represents three days' worth of data.)

There were also another 51 deaths related to complications from COVID-19 -- this number is for the past two days, not just for Monday.  Five of those deaths are in Stearns county with one person in their late 40s.  Two of the deaths were in Benton county including one person in their early 50s.  Minnesota's death toll from COVID-19 is now at 9,047.

Down in Goodhue County, there was a teenager who died due to complications related to COVID. Goodhue County also reported a person in their late 30s died.

In Stearns County MDH says about 51 percent of the population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, in Benton county about 48 percent has had at least one dose.

Dr. Bret Haake is with HealthPartners:

It's pretty easy in the community to be kind of blind to what is happening in the hospitals but the reality of it is the hospitals have a lot of really sick COVID patients. And it's everybody's responsibility to get everybody who is unvaccinated -- vaccinated so we can get out of this pandemic and get life back to normal.

Minnesota's rate of new infections has been the worst in the nation over the past week. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota says the main reason is that there are still large segments of the state's population that are unvaccinated.

This story is courtesy of the Minnesota News Network.  

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