Positive cases of COVID-19 continue to increase in Minneosta, according to numbers released Monday, though the number of patients hospitalized and in intensive care in the state have declined.

Minnesota has also seen an increase of 315 new positive cases.

Now, 35,861 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the state.

The state’s number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has trended higher in recent days, with young adults being a major driver — people in their 20s now make up the largest age group of cases.

Ehresmann on Friday noted that some of the people who tested positive in Mankato work in child care, pointing out that they have a high likelihood of inadvertently spreading the disease to children and families.

That includes Mower County in southeastern Minnesota, where there were 868 confirmed cases as of Friday.

While some of Mower County’s positive cases are associated with people who work in the facilities and with the people they live with, county officials say they are also seeing transmission among people who live in the county but work in other counties where coronavirus is present.

Nobles, in southwestern Minnesota, reported 1,643 confirmed cases Friday.

About 1 in 14 people now have tested positive for COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began, although the count of new cases has slowed considerably in recent weeks.

Similar problems have been reported in Stearns County, where COVID-19 cases tied to two packing plants — Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Cold Spring and Jennie-O Turkey in Melrose — skyrocketed in May.

There were about 55 confirmed cases in Stearns County in early May.

By Friday, confirmed cases were at 2,156 with 19 deaths.

Kandiyohi County in west-central Minnesota is also dealing with a significant caseload more than two months after officials with the Jennie-O turkey processing plant there said some employees had tested positive for the coronavirus.

As of Friday, the Health Department reported 564 people have now tested positive in the county, the same as Thursday.

The county had confirmed three COVID-19 cases in late April.