300K shots, but the state has a long way to go

Happy Thursday, Minnesota!

It's almost time to say bye to this week's cold snap. We're having one more frigid morning today before a temperature rebound starting this afternoon. Lows this morning are in the negative teens in northern Minnesota to single digits south. Highs today will be range from 13 to 21 degrees, with sunny skies. Get the latest on the Updraft.

After sluggish start, Minnesota is finally seeing an upswing in COVID-19 vaccinations, but the pace still isn’t where it needs to be.

As of Monday, more than 300,000 Minnesotans received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, about 5.5 percent of the state’s population, and the state's latest data show that 73,304 people have completed their vaccinations in the state.

Still, demand continues to far outpace supply. Officials say 226,244 Minnesotans registered this week for a chance to get one of the roughly 8,000 doses for people 65 and older. At the current rate, it would take a full calendar year to vaccinate 80 percent of Minnesota adults.

And the bright picture continues for the pandemic in Minnesota. Three days in a row, the state reported fewer than 1,000 new daily cases.

The Health Department on Wednesday reported 851 new cases and 18 more deaths. Active, known COVID-19 case counts fell to 9,453, the lowest since early October and down dramatically from late November, when they hovered around 50,000.

Here are Minnesota’s latest COVID-19 statistics:

Welcoming dine-in patrons again after weekslong closure, Minnesota restaurant owners are busy keeping up with the "pent-up demand."

Restaurant owners say Minnesotans are taking advantage of the return to in-person dining. The state's hospitality businesses got the go-ahead to reopen to limited inside drinking and dining earlier this month. Though they might prefer opening at full capacity, they’re focused on avoiding a return to harsher restrictions.

With a sudden case uptick in Brazil, scientists are worried about the virus variant from the country, which was detected in Minnesota.

For some scientists, the most worrying variant among many might be the newest one, first found in Brazil. The variant called P.1, which emerged in early December in Manaus, Brazil, and by mid-January had already caused a massive resurgence in cases across the city of 2 million people. Earlier this week, that variant was confirmed in Minnesota, which is the first known case in the U.S.

On today's Morning Edition, Sara Vetter, assistant director of the state Health Department's Public Health Laboratory, joins host Cathy Wurzer to discuss testing for new COVID-19 variants.

Art Hounds' recommendations this week: A large, multimedia work contemplates mass-produced clothing and the issues raised in their manufacture. Plus, a show at Kohlman and Pryor Gallery celebrates the color orange, and the Duluth murals by Moira Villiard. Read more about those artworks and performance on today's Art Hounds.

🎧 Tune in to stay informed and connected. Here's what's coming up on MPR News today. — Jiwon Choi, MPR News MPRNews.org.