New Jersey health officials on Wednesday reported an additional 3,950 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 107 additional deaths, as hospitalizations dropped to the lowest number since late November.
The state’s seven-day average for new confirmed positive tests for COVID-19 is 4,325, down 9% from the previous week, but up 4% from the previous month.
The total vaccination across the state increased by 642,603 doses administered on Wednesday, as the state learned from federal authorities that additional doses of vaccine would be arriving in the next three weeks.
“Make no mistake, however, that we – like all other states – need to greatly increase vaccine production and distribution,” said Governor Phil Murphy when announcing the latest figures during a meeting in Trenton. “We just need the doses to make our program work the way it was designed to work.”
New Jersey’s 71 hospitals registered 3,190 patients on Tuesday night, down 61 from the previous day and the lowest number of patients since November 30. This also decreased 18% from the recent peak on December 22.
The pandemic has killed at least 21,220 people in the state since COVID-19’s first death in March, including 19,091 confirmed deaths and 2,129 deaths considered likely by the virus. The probable deaths were revised to eight more deaths on Wednesday. New Jersey recorded 2,109 deaths in January, the deadliest month of the outbreak since May.
New Jersey has already reported 606,492 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the nearly 11 months since its first positive test on March 4. Another 70,045 cases of antibody tests have been reported, although these are considered likely and may overlap with confirmed tests.
The positivity rate for tests performed on Saturday, the last available day, was 12.62% based on 25,509 tests.
The transmission rate is 0.91, down from 0.92 the previous day. Any number below 1 indicates that the outbreak is decreasing.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live Map Tracker | Newsletter | Home page
COUNTY BY COUNTY CASES (ranked by most new ones)
- Middlesex County: 57,975 confirmed cases (415 new), 1,674 confirmed deaths (217 likely)
- Bergen County: 58,618 confirmed cases (407 new), 2,189 confirmed deaths (268 probable)
- Essex County: 58,162 confirmed cases (404 new), 2,267 confirmed deaths (255 likely)
- Monmouth County: 43,338 confirmed cases (336 new), 1,128 confirmed deaths (108 probable)
- Passaic County: 46,341 confirmed cases (330 new), 1,422 confirmed deaths (163 probable)
- Ocean County: 43,263 confirmed cases (295 new), 1,541 confirmed deaths (90 likely)
- Hudson County: 55,192 confirmed cases (288 new), 1,677 confirmed deaths (171 probable)
- Morris County: 26,724 confirmed cases (228 new), 840 confirmed deaths (207 probable)
- Union County: 43,747 confirmed cases (184 new), 1,468 confirmed deaths (186 probable)
- Camden County: 35,657 confirmed cases (182 new), 923 confirmed deaths (69 probable)
- Burlington County: 27,274 confirmed cases (157 new), 631 confirmed deaths (48 probable)
- Gloucester County: 18,656 confirmed cases (145 new), 467 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Mercer County: 23,155 confirmed cases (127 new), 765 confirmed deaths (38 probable)
- Atlantic County: 16,727 confirmed cases (111 new), 438 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Cumberland County: 10,498 confirmed cases (75 new), 279 confirmed deaths (14 probable)
- Somerset County: 15,893 confirmed cases (75 new), 642 confirmed deaths (96 probable)
- Warren County: 5,304 confirmed cases (49 new), 183 confirmed deaths (15 probable)
- Sussex County: 6,690 confirmed cases (45 new), 198 confirmed deaths (55 probable)
- Hunterdon County: 5,186 confirmed cases (38 new), 93 confirmed deaths (54 likely)
- Cape May County: 3,132 confirmed cases (28 new), 140 confirmed deaths (20 probable)
- Salem County: 3,800 confirmed cases (13 new), 126 confirmed deaths (11 probable)
VACCINATIONS
There have been 642,613 doses of vaccine administered in New Jersey so far, according to the state panel. Of these, 550,526 were the first of the two doses that people will receive.
That is out of more than 1 million doses the state has received from the federal government, according to an ongoing count by the federal Centers for Disease Control.
All six of the state’s vaccine mega-sites have already been opened, along with about 200 other sites across the state.
New Jersey faced criticism for slower deployment than dozens of other states, according to CDC data.
Murphy said on Wednesday that the state can now expect about 130,000 doses from the federal government in the next three weeks, against 100,000, but demand is still outstripping supply in the state.
“We still have a big imbalance between supply and demand. We will still be reducing that in the coming weeks, ”said Murphy during an interview with CNN.
VACCINATIONS BY COUNTY:
- ATLANTIC COUNTY – 18,999 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 70,004 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 31,574 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 37,430 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY – 9,091 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 9,775 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 51,631 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 22,110 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 30,031 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 9,411 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 16,035 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 47,872 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 49,120 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 47,119 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 39,378 doses administered
- PASSAICO COUNTY – 30,080 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 3,478 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 25,327 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 10,127 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 31,613 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 20,804 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 6,322 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE – 25,282 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 3,190 hospitalized patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey’s 71 hospitals on Tuesday night. That’s 61 less than the day before.
This included 578 in critical or intensive care, with 406 in ventilators.
There were also 416 patients with COVID-19 who were discharged on Monday, according to the state’s COVID-19 panel.
Murphy said any hospitalization of more than 5,000 patients would likely trigger new rounds of restrictions. But the number of people hospitalized has been slowly decreasing in recent days, after reaching a record 3,873 people in more than seven months on December 22.
SCHOOL CASES
At least 629 students and staff in 131 school districts in New Jersey have contracted COVID-19 through outbreaks in schools, according to the latest update from state health officials.
This is an increase of 10 districts from the previous weekly report. There are now confirmed outbreaks in schools in all 21 counties, although the state does not identify individual school districts.
These figures do not include students or staff believed to have been infected outside the school or cases that cannot be confirmed as outbreaks within the school. Although the numbers continue to rise each week, Murphy said the school outbreak statistics remain below what state officials expected when schools reopened for face-to-face classes.
New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases in which contact trackers determined that two or more students or school staff picked up or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school.
AGE DISSOLUTION
Separated by age, those aged 30 to 49 constitute the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who caught the virus (31.2%), followed by those aged 50-64 (23.7%), 18-29 (19, 3%), 65-79 (11.1%), 5-17 (7.5%), 80 and older (5.4%) and 0-4 (1.6%).
On average, the virus was more deadly for older residents, especially those with pre-existing illnesses. Almost half of the deaths from COVID-19 in the state occurred among residents aged 80 and over (47%), followed by those aged 65-79 (33%), 50-64 (15.6%), 30-49 (4 %), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0%).
At least 7,713 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths occurred among residents and staff members in nursing homes and other long-term care institutions. That number has increased again at a more pronounced rate in recent months, with deaths in state nursing homes nearly tripling in December.
There are currently active outbreaks in 435 facilities, resulting in 7,338 active cases among residents and 7,929 among employees.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Wednesday morning, there were more than 100 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a count running by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.16 million people died of coronavirus-related complications.
The USA reported the majority of cases, with more than 25.4 million, and the majority of deaths, with more than 425,200.
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Matt Arco can be contacted at [email protected].