New Jersey on Sunday reported another 3,823 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 29 additional deaths, as an impending snowstorm threatens to halt vaccination efforts.
Hospitalizations dropped to 2,901, the lowest since November 28. The rate of positivity of tests performed on Wednesday, the last available day, was 8.69% of the 54,492 tests performed.
Governor Phil Murphy announced the latest numbers on Twitter on Sunday morning and the state is administering about 25,000 doses of vaccine per day, on average. There have been more than 780,000 doses of vaccines administered to New Jersey residents.
New Jersey has already lost 21,484 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak, with 19,355 confirmed deaths and 2,129 likely. The death toll in January rose to 2,377 confirmed fatalities, the highest in any month since May.
The transmission rate rose slightly to 0.94, compared to four consecutive days of 0.91. Any number below 1 indicates that the outbreak is decreasing.
The total number of confirmed cases is now 623,541 out of more than 9.2 million positive tests. There were also 73,288 positive antigen tests, that the state recently started reporting publicly. These cases are considered likely and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests can override confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes administered together.
Murphy announced that he is extending the ban on interstate sports to certain age groups, including high school programs, which was set to expire on Sunday. The ban was first announced in November.
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VACCINATIONS
There was 785,588 doses of vaccine administered in New Jersey so far, according to the state panel. Those, 656,174 were the first of the two doses that people will receive.
That’s more than 1.23 million doses the state has received from the federal government, according to a count by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
All six of the state’s vaccine mega-sites have already been opened along with about 200 other sites across the state, although some mega-sites have to suspend operations for a day after running out of doses. New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan said on Friday that there are plans to remove snow from the six state megasites to ensure that there are entrances and exits.
On Wednesday, Murphy said 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.
VACCINATIONS BY COUNTY
- ATLANTIC COUNTY – 22,813 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 86,616 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 38,742 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 46,359 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY- 11,358 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 11,498 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 62,777 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 26,024 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 36,437 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 10,785 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 21,023 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 58,828 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 59,564 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 58,242 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 47,462 doses administered
- PASSAICO COUNTY – 36,853 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 4,691 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 30,871 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 13,151 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 38,734 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 8,018 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 25,732 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE – 29,010 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 2,901 hospitalized patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 at 71 New Jersey hospitals on Saturday night. That’s 174 less than the day before.
Which included 519 in critical or intensive care (14 less than the night before), with 355 in fans (4 less).
There were also 423 patients with COVID-19 who were discharged on Friday, 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.
The state reached a high of more than 8,000 hospitalizations in April.
SCHOOL CASES
At least 629 students and staff in 131 school districts in New Jersey caught COVID-19 in school outbreaks, according to the latest update from state health officials.
This is an increase of 10 districts from the previous weekly report. Now, there are confirmed outbreaks in schools in all 21 counties, although the state does not identify school districts individually.
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 the cases in which contact trackers determined that two or more students or school staff caught 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 contracted the virus (31.1%), followed by those aged 50-64 (23.5%), 18-29 (19, 3%), 65-79 (11.1%), 5-17 (7.9%), 80 and older (5.3%) and 0-4 (1.6%).
On average, the virus was more deadly for older residents, especially those with pre-existing illnesses. Almost half of deaths by COVID-19 in the state occurred among residents aged 80 and over (47.49%), followed by those aged 65-79 (32.56%), 50-64 (15.52%), 30 -49 (4.05%), 18-29 (0.36%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0.02%).
At least 7,748 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.
Currently, there are active outbreaks in 425 units, resulting in 7,514 active cases among residents and 8,102 among employees.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Sunday, there were more than 102.7 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.2 million people hanI died of complications related to the coronavirus.
The United States reported the majority of cases, with more than 26 million, and the majority of deaths, with more than 440,000.
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