New Jersey on Saturday reported another 4,626 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 74 additional deaths, as vaccination doses exceeded 761,000 injections administered and hospitalizations continued to fall.
Hospitalizations dropped to 3,075, the lowest since November 29. The rate of positivity of the tests performed on Monday, Tuesday, the last available day, was 8.92% of the 54,917 tests performed.
Governor Phil Murphy announced the latest numbers on Twitter on Saturday afternoon and the state is administering about 25,000 doses of vaccine a day on average.
New Jersey has already lost 21,455 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak, with 19,326 confirmed deaths and 2,129 likely. The death toll in January rose to 2,348 confirmed deaths, the highest number in any month since May.
The transmission rate remained 0.91 for the fourth consecutive day. Any number below 1 indicates that the outbreak is decreasing.
The total number of confirmed cases is now 619,732 out of more than 9.2 million positive tests. There were also 72,811 positive antigen tests, which the state recently started to report publicly. These cases are considered likely and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests can override confirmed PCR tests, because sometimes they are 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
So far, 761,283 doses of vaccine have been administered in New Jersey, according to the state panel. Of these, 637,844 were the first of the two doses that people will receive.
That is more than 1.23 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 opened along with about 200 other sites across the state, although some mega-sites have suspended operations for a day after running out of doses.
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 – 22,353 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 84,230 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 37,345 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 44,871 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY- 10,765 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 11,305 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 59,964 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 25,449 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 35,509 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 10,508 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 20,131 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 56,838 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 57,468 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 56,667 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 46,567 doses administered
- PASSAICO COUNTY – 35,713 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 4,498 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 29,636 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 12,647 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 37,539 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 7,871 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 24,955 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE – 28,454 doses administered
COUNTY COUNT NUMBERS BY COUNTY (classified by most new cases)
· Middlesex County: 59,448 confirmed cases (549 new), 1,704 confirmed deaths (217 likely)
· Bergen County: 59,878 confirmed cases (479 new), 2,201 confirmed deaths (268 probable)
· Essex County: 59,622 confirmed cases (437 new), 2,283 confirmed deaths (255 likely)
· Hudson County: 56,366 confirmed cases (414 new), 1,694 confirmed deaths (171 probable)
· Ocean County: 44,512 confirmed cases (408 new), 1,559 confirmed deaths (90 probable)
· Monmouth County: 44,436 confirmed cases (348 new), 1,151 confirmed deaths (108 probable)
· Morris County: 27,510 confirmed cases (278 new), 844 confirmed deaths (207 probable)
· Passaic County: 46,995 confirmed cases (235 new), 1,437 confirmed deaths (163 probable)
· Union County: 44,346 confirmed cases (235 new), 1,486 confirmed deaths (186 probable)
· Camden County: 36,278 confirmed cases (186 new), 948 confirmed deaths (69 probable)
· Burlington County: 27,750 confirmed cases (178 new), 637 confirmed deaths (48 probable)
· Mercer County: 23,603 confirmed cases (177 new), 779 confirmed deaths (38 probable)
· Atlantic County: 17,145 confirmed cases (126 new), 450 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
· Somerset County: 16,239 confirmed cases (116 new), 648 confirmed deaths (96 probable)
· Gloucester County: 19,050 confirmed cases (104 new), 473 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
· Sussex County: 6,875 confirmed cases (75 new), 199 confirmed deaths (55 probable)
· Cumberland County: 10,715 confirmed cases (65 new), 287 confirmed deaths (14 probable)
· Warren County: 5,457 confirmed cases (57 new), 183 confirmed deaths (15 probable)
· Hunterdon County: 5,310 confirmed cases (53 new), 93 confirmed deaths (54 likely)
· Salem County: 3,885 confirmed cases (36 new), 129 confirmed deaths (11 probable)
· Cape May County: 3,185 confirmed cases (24 new), 141 confirmed deaths (20 probable)
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 3,075 hospitalized patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey’s 71 hospitals on Friday night. That’s 41 less than the day before.
This included 533 in critical or intensive care (30 less than the night before), with 359 on ventilators (19 less).
There were also 367 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, for the most part, has slowed slowly in the past few days, after hitting 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 have contracted COVID-19 through school outbreaks, 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 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 COVID-19 deaths in the state occurred among residents aged 80 and over (47%), followed by those aged 65-79 (32%), 50-64 (15.6%), 30-49 (3 , 9%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0%).
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 risen again at a more pronounced rate in recent months, with deaths in asylum in the state 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 Saturday, there were more than 102.2 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.2 million people died of complications related to the coronavirus.
The USA reported the majority of cases, with more than 25.9 million, and the majority of deaths, with more than 436,900.
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Rodrigo Torrejon can be found at [email protected].