New Jersey health officials reported 5,490 new confirmed cases of coronavirus and 67 additional deaths on Friday, as vaccination sites reported a huge increase in consultations with the expansion of eligibility that started a day earlier.
Governor Phil Murphy provided the latest update on Friday afternoon, after visiting the state’s third vaccination mega-site to open. The location at the New Jersey Convention and Exhibition Center in Edison is among six planned. More than 310,000 people have been vaccinated in New Jersey so far.
“We are ready to move forward with an aggressive expansion of our vaccination efforts,” said Murphy. “We only need to supply the feds to meet the demand. We are ready, they are not ”.
There were 3,543 patients hospitalized in New Jersey with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 on Thursday night. There are 96 less than the previous night and for the second consecutive time the number of hospitalized people has dropped.
The state of 9 million residents has already lost 20,320 residents in the COVID-19 outbreak – 18,229 confirmed deaths and 2,091 considered likely. New Jersey has already announced 1,130 confirmed deaths this month, after 1,890 in December.
New has now reported 555,299 confirmed cases in more than 8.6 million tests administered since authorities announced the state’s first case on March 4. There were also 60,787 positive rapid antigen tests, which the state began reporting publicly last week, although the state has warned that they may override confirmed PCR tests.
The transmission rate for COVID-19 across the state remained slightly increased on Friday to 1.11, from 1.10 a day earlier. A transmission rate above 1 indicates that the outbreak is expanding.
The seven-day average for new confirmed cases is 5,587, an increase of 15% over the previous week and 18% over the previous month.
The positivity rate for tests administered on Monday, the most recent day available, was 9.63% for 70,055 tests. The positivity rate has been at 10% or more since December 22.
The New Jersey chief health officer warned on Wednesday that the state is preparing for an “increase” in hospitalizations due to the most recent peak cases that may occur as early as next week and could trigger a new round of restrictions, especially with elective surgeries.
Although hospitalizations remained between 3,500 and 3,900 for weeks, well below the peak of more than 8,000 in the spring, Department of Health commissioner Judy Persichilli said hospital staff are concerned about the weeks ahead due to staff availability .
“We are preparing for the predictive increase that could begin next week in mid-February,” said Persichilli on Wednesday.
“What we will not have is the appropriate level of personnel that people are familiar with, conventional personnel,” she said. “Therefore, we will be working with our hospitals if they need to progress to what we call a contingency team and, hopefully, never an emergency team.”
Murphy warned that hospitalizations of more than 5,000 patients would likely trigger some new restrictions – particularly in elective surgeries, which include procedures such as the removal of tumors.
Hospitalizations from 1/13/21
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live Map Tracker | Newsletter | Home page
VACCINATIONS
More than 310,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in the state as of Friday, according to the state’s COVID-19 panel. Of these, 273,335 were the first of two doses that people will receive, while 35,512 were the second, according to the panel.
The single-day discharge so far was January 8, when 24,482 doses were administered, according to the state.
New Jersey administered an average of about 9,500 injections per day during the first 30 days of the program, including Christmas Day, when no doses were administered. The state has averaged about 17,000 shots a day for the past seven days, state records show.
The state has faced criticism for implementing vaccines too slowly. The authorities emphasize that there may be a lower count of the number of vaccines administered due to delays in reporting and New Jersey, like other states, depends on the federal government for its supply.
Murphy announced on Wednesday that people over 65, as well as people with chronic health problems and smokers, can now receive the vaccine.
Authorities said the doses should be available to the general public in April or May. Health officials said they expect to vaccinate 70% of their adult residents – about 4.7 million people – by the end of May.
In recent days, the state has opened the first two of its six “mega-sites” planned for mass vaccination. Vaccines are also currently available at 130 locations across the state, including local health departments, ShopRite stores and pharmacies.
More than 1.5 million people have registered to receive the vaccine.
VACCINE DOSES ADMINISTERED BY THE COUNTY
- ATLANTIC COUNTY – 10,811 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 34,325 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 15,038 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 17,465 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY – 4,535 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 4,477 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 25,037 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 13,033 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 11,033 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 4,937 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 7,342 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 23,017 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 24,521 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 22,675 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 16,679 doses administered
- PASSAICO COUNTY – 14,294 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 1,520 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 12,317 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 5,248 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 14,728 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 3,227 doses administered
- OUT-OF-STATE RESIDENTS – 15,104 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 9,232 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 3,543 patients hospitalized in New Jersey with confirmed (3,313) or suspected (230) cases of COVID-19 on Thursday night. There were 96 less than the previous night and for the second consecutive time the number of hospitalized fell.
It included 626 in critical or intensive care (18 less than the night before), with 438 in ventilators (19 less).
There were 452 patients with COVID-19 discharged on Thursday and 427 hospitalized, according to the state’s COVID-19 panel.
SCHOOL CASES
There have been 111 outbreaks of coronavirus in schools in New Jersey, involving 557 students, teachers and staff since the beginning of the school year in late August, according to the state panel.
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.
The number of school districts in New Jersey with totally remote education has increased with students returning from winter holidays, Murphy said on Monday.
There are 339 districts that started 2021 remotely – an increase from 18 remote districts as of December 21. Only 77 school districts are returning with full face-to-face instruction (compared to 82 on December 21), and 348 are returning with a face-to-face or remote instruction hybrid (out of 362).
Another 47 districts are using some combination of face-to-face, hybrid or completely remote in several buildings – one more than on December 21.
AGE DISSOLUTION
Separated by age, those aged 30 to 49 constitute the highest percentage of New Jersey residents who caught the virus (31.3%), followed by those aged 50-64 (23.8%), 18-29 (19, 2%), 65-79 (11.2%), 80 and older (5.5%), 5-17 (7.3%) and 0-4 (1.5%).
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 (47.49%), followed by those aged 65-79 (32.29%), 50-64 (15.68%), 30 -49 (4.14%), 18-29 (0.36%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0.03%).
At least 7,606 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.
There are currently active outbreaks in 428 facilities, resulting in 6,510 active cases among residents and 7,034 among employees.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Friday morning, there were more than 93.3 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.99 million people died from coronavirus-related complications.
The USA reported the majority of cases, with more than 23.3 million, and the majority of deaths, with more than 388,700.
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Matt Arco can be contacted at [email protected].