Meanwhile, a state committee studying how to ethically distribute a coronavirus vaccine when one becomes available met for the first time Monday.

There were 173 people with the coronavirus disease in hospitals around the state, up nine from the previous day and five more than the previous high reported Friday, according to the health department.

There were 25 staffed intensive care beds and 268 staffed inpatient beds available in North Dakota on Monday, according to the latest state data. Sanford Health Bismarck had one staffed intensive care bed and no staffed inpatient beds available. CHI St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck had no staffed intensive care beds and six staffed inpatient beds available.

State health officials on Monday reported 527 new COVID-19 cases, including 89 in Burleigh County and 24 in Morton, raising the state total to 38,241.

The Associated Press on Monday reported that North Dakota continues to rank first in the country for new cases per capita in the last two weeks, according to The COVID Tracking Project.

Active cases statewide dropped by 60, to 6,446. There were 1,377 active cases in Burleigh-Morton. In Cass County, home to Fargo, another hot spot in the state, there were 136 new cases and 1,158 active cases.

The department reported five new deaths, including a Burleigh County man in his 70s. The county's death toll is now 76, with another 50 in Morton. New deaths also were reported in Cass, Ramsey, Sioux and Williams counties, raising the state's pandemic total to 461. The Sioux County man was in his 30s; the other new victims were in their 70s and 80s.

Statewide, there have been 31,344 recoveries and 1,437 hospitalizations since the onset of the pandemic in mid-March. The number of state residents tested for coronavirus at least once is at 284,478 and total tests number 822,605, including 6,660 completed Sunday.

Vaccine ethics

The state's COVID-19 Vaccination Ethics Committee held its first meeting Monday. The group's purpose is to help prioritize how a vaccine will be distributed to different groups such as health care workers or people in congregate living settings such as prisons.

The group approved the ethical principals it will follow from the American Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine. It also discussed areas of potential ethical concern, such as how to distribute the vaccine to health care workers.

The committee is advisory. Any decisions about how to allocate vaccine will come from the state’s COVID-19 Unified Command, which is led by the state health officer and the National Guard's adjutant general, and includes state Cabinet officials and other leaders.

The ethis committee is made up of Steven Mitchell, a neuroradiologist from Fargo; Caleb Pickard, an ethics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder; Seth Fisher, a state regional coordinator with the Department of Human Services; Barbara Frydenlund, the administrator and director of nursing for Rolette County Public Health; and Acting State Health Officer Dirk Wilke. The committee is facilitated by Dr. Stephen Pickard, a former epidemiology field officer in North Dakota for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pickard has been advising the state on its COVID-19 response.

North Dakota's COVID-19 Vaccination Planning Committee, a separate group, meets again on Wednesday. That committee recently submitted to federal officials a draft plan to distribute a future vaccine, after months of work. More than 120 people are members of that committee.

Risk level

Burleigh, Morton and 14 other North Dakota counties are in the orange "high risk" level on the state's five-level color-coded system; 15 are in the yellow "moderate risk" level; 17 are in the green "low risk" level; and five are in the blue "new normal" level.

The risk level determines what sort of coronavirus-related protocols are in place under the ND Smart Restart Plan for everything from businesses to family gatherings. The guidelines are not enforced. The state reviews the county levels weekly. The levels did not change this past week.

The state's COVID-19 Smart Restart County Analysis data dashboard can be accessed at www.health.nd.gov/healthmetrics. Information on COVID-19 in K-12 schools is at https://www.health.nd.gov/k-12-school-dashboard. For more detailed information on coronavirus in North Dakota, go to health.nd.gov/coronavirus.