On two days this month, the state of Minnesota Department of Health recorded no deaths from COVID-19. On March 12 and March 16, zero deaths from COVID were reported.

That is good, heartening news on the COVID front, but it carries a caution.

Since a lot of reports to the DOH are delayed as cases and lab results come in, it is possible a death could be reported late, but the numbers for the past week have been encouraging. Since the 16th, 12 deaths have been reported — five on the 17th, but no more than three since then.Compare that with the 33 a day during the last week in January.

It is evident that the infection rate is slowing, too. The positivity rate — the percentage of COVID tests that are positive — has dropped from 23.5% in Januaary to 2.8% on March 15. The number of hospitalizations statewide has also fallen.

We hope this means we are turning a corner, but as we learned last summer, things can change dramatically. The delta and omicron variants sent cases rocketing up again last summer, and there is a new variant, the BA.2 subvariant that is spreading across the U.S. now. It may be more infectious than the omicon variant, but its severity is not known at this time.

COVID-19 is far from over, and it may never be totally eradicated, but we can celebrate the good news.