With new coronavirus cases in free fall in New Jersey last month, 18 of the state’s 21 counties reported fewer cases this week than last week.
New Jersey added 19 new cases of COVID-19 per 10,000 residents in the week of February 18-24. It is a decrease of 12.1% in relation to the previous week.
On Friday, the state’s coronavirus activity level dropped to “moderate” for the first time in about three and a half months.
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Several counties have also seen significant declines. Passaic County paved the way, going from 25 new cases per 10,000 a week ago to 17.2 this week. It is a drop of 31.3%, the largest in the state.
Hunterdon County (-22.1%), Mercer County (-26.4%) and Sussex County (-22.8%) also fell by more than 20%. Eight other counties fell 10% or more.
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Three counties saw modest gains in their weekly totals, led by Cape May, an increase of 9.4%, from 11.3 cases per 10,000 people to 12.4. Burlington County grew 4.7%, while Salem County rose 1.5%.
In terms of gross cases, Ocean County reported the highest total for the week, with 26.2 new cases per 10,000 residents. Only five counties added more than 20 cases per 10,000 with the others being Bergen County (21.1), Hudson County (23.9), Middlesex County (20.0) and Monmouth County (23.5).
Salem County added the lowest number of new cases in the state, with 10.4 new cases per 10,000 residents, or about one for every 1,000 people in the county.
Nationally, the week saw 14.2 new cases per 10,000 U.S. residents. This is a 14.1% drop from the previous week.
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Nick Devlin is a reporter for the data and investigations team. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @nickdevlin.