St Paul (KROC AM News) - Minnesota is getting closer and closer to conducting 5,000 COVID-19 tests per day, a goal being sought by Gov. Walz and state health officials.

Friday’s daily report from the Minnesota Dept of Health shows an additional 4500 tests have been conducted, raising the running total to nearly 75,000.

So far, over 8,600 Olmsted County residents have been tested, which is about 5.4-percent of the population. 2.8-percent of the tests have come back positive for COVID-19. 16-percent of those cases involved community transmission.

The number of tests was a new daily record - as was the number of new positive cases, reported at 594. That raised the total number of positive cases to 5730.

There were 28 new deaths, also a new daily record. Two of those were in Olmsted County, which now has a total of eight.  The Olmsted County deaths involved two elderly women.  Olmsted County Public Health says one was in her 80s and was receiving hospice services, while the other woman was in her 90s and had multiple underlying health problems. Both were living in congregate care facilities. 

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