Minnesota Health officials are reportedly expressing hopeful for the milder Covid-19 summer with an indication of lower trends in hospitalization and wasterwater virus loads.

According to Star Tribune, number of MN counties with high risks droppe from 19 to seven just past week. “Satewide sampling this week found less evidence in wastewater of the coronavirus that causes the infectious disease. The seven-day average of new infections in Minnesota also declined from 2,138 per day on May 11 to 1,805 on May 20 — although that is only based on publicly reported testing and not any at-home test results.”

Dr. Matthew Prekker, a critical care medicine specialist with Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, told Star Tribune that high rate immunity as a result of vaccination or natural Covid infection helped reduce severe illness in peoples.

“The baseline risk in the population for getting so, so sick — that was there before we had widely accepted vaccines — is much lower now. We’re also dealing with less virulent but very transmissible COVID strains … Fortunately, we’re not seeing critical illness nearly as much as we were last year,” Dr. Prekker told Tribune.

• COVID-19 wave appears to be in retreat as trends improve in Minnesota
• COVID-19 in MN: Hopeful signs as cases, wastewater loads trend lower

Star Tribune writes: “The CDC designations, based on infection and hospital numbers, are designed to warn communities when their hospitals could be at risk of bed shortages. Most of the Twin Cities metro area remains at moderate risk, though Anoka and Carver counties are at low risk.”

MPR News writes quoting the latest data from Metropolitan Council / University of Minnesota Genomic Center’s weekly wastewater analysis “After more than a month of increasing COVID load, we now see a consistent decline in levels over the past week. Overall the levels are down 38 percent compared to the week before.”