New Jersey health officials announced 3,641 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday and 49 additional deaths as hospitalizations dropped to less than 2,000 and the lowest level in more than three months.
Continuing a steady decline, the number of people hospitalized with coronavirus on Friday night fell to 1,919 – the first time it has dropped to less than 2,000 since November 12, according to state data.
A day after COVID-19 activity level across the state dropped to moderate levels for the first time since November, Governor Phil Murphy announced the latest figures on Twitter, noting that there were 1,960,629 doses of coronavirus vaccine administered in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, including 1,295,891 first doses and 663,855 second doses.
That is more than 2.47 million doses the state has received, according to a count by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state’s goal is to vaccinate 70% of its adult population – about 4.7 million people – in the coming months.
Previously, Murphy said New Jersey could receive an initial shipment of 70,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine next week if it passes as expected.
The positivity rate for tests performed on Monday, the most recent day available, was 6.53% based on 55,350 tests. The transmission rate across the state increased to 0.89 for the second consecutive day. Any rate below 1 means that the outbreak is decreasing.
New Jersey has already reported 699,564 confirmed cases of coronavirus in more than 10.56 million CRP tests in the nearly 12 months since the state reported its first case on March 4, 2020. There have also been 87,403 positive antigen tests. These cases are considered likely, and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests may override confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes administered together.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live Map Tracker | Newsletter | Home page
The state of 9 million people also reported that 23,238 residents died from complications related to COVID-19, including 2,331 deaths considered likely. This includes 1,574 confirmed deaths from coronavirus reported in February.
New Jersey identified 63 cases of the COVID-19 variant first identified in the UK, with eight new cases reported on Friday.
VACCINES BY COUNTY
- ATLANTIC COUNTY – 59,983 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 223,170 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 100,094 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 111,622 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY – 28,118 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 26,231 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 156,101 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 67,869 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 91,200 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 24,180 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 56,013 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 150,213 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 143,805 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 144,748 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 119,072 doses administered
- PASSAICO COUNTY – 88,570 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 12,438 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 74,233 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 29,418 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 94,493 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 17,917 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 84,776 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE – 56,365 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 1,919 hospitalized patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey’s 71 hospitals on Friday night – 89 less than the night before and the lowest since November 12, according to the state panel.
This included 404 in critical or intensive care (35 less than the previous night), with 248 in ventilators (22 less).
There were also 270 patients with COVID-19 who were discharged on Friday.
Hospitalizations peaked in more than 8,000 patients during the first wave of the pandemic in April.
SCHOOL CASES
New Jersey reported on Tuesday eight new outbreaks of coronavirus in schools, bringing the total to 152 cases, which resulted in 737 cases among students, teachers and school staff this school year, according to the state panel.
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.
School outbreaks have been reported in all 21 counties, according to the state.
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.
There are about 1.4 million students and teachers across the state, although teaching methods in the midst of the outbreak have varied, with some schools teaching in person, some using a hybrid format and others remaining entirely remote.
AGE DISSOLUTION
Separated by age, those aged 30 to 49 constitute the highest percentage of New Jersey residents who contracted the virus (31%), followed by those aged 50-64 (23.3%), 18-29 (19.5%) ), 65-79 (10.9%), 5-17 (8.4%), 80 and older (5%) and 0-4 (1.7%).
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 (46.7%), followed by those aged 65-79 (33.3%), 50-64 (15.6%), 30 -49 (3.9%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0%).
At least 7,906 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths occurred among residents and staff members in nursing homes and other long-term care institutions.
There are currently active outbreaks in 342 facilities, resulting in 6,413 active cases among residents and 6,538 among employees.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Saturday, there were more than 113.59 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.52 million people died of coronavirus-related complications.
The United States reported the majority of cases, with more than 28.5 million, and the majority of deaths, with more than 510,900.
Thank you for trusting us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Rodrigo Torrejon can be found at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.