New Jersey reported a further 3,783 confirmed coronavirus cases and 78 additional deaths on Saturday as the number of people vaccinated continued to rise, while nearly 250,000 vaccine doses for the state are expected to aid in the painstaking rollout.
Governor Phil Murphy’s latest update was posted on Twitter and comes a day after signing a law to expand outdoor dining options for restaurants, bars and distilleries. In addition, the increase in indoor dining capacity from 25% to 35% took effect Friday morning. Other locations, including gyms, personal care and casinos, were included in the expansion by 35%.
The 71 hospitals in New Jersey reported 2,895 hospitalized patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, a decrease of 21 patients from the day before. The number of patients in the intensive care unit rose to 737, an increase of 222 from the previous day.
New Jersey has now lost 21,964 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak – 19,777 confirmed fatalities and 2,187 considered likely. The state reported 429 confirmed deaths in the first six days of February. The death toll in January was 2,377 confirmed fatalities, the highest number in any month since May.
The total number of confirmed cases is now 641,087 out of more than 9.5 million PCR tests. There have also been 76,748 positive antigen tests, which the state recently began to publicly report. Those cases are considered likely, and health officials have warned that the positive antigen tests could overlap with the confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes given together.
The transmission speed reported on Friday fell to 0.9 from 0.92 on Friday. Any number below 1 indicates that the outbreak is slowing down.
The positivity rate for tests conducted on Tuesday, the most recent day available, was 8.53% of the 30,160 tests administered. However, the test numbers for the first half of this week are likely to be skewed by a massive snowstorm that dumped more than a foot of snow with a total of more than 12 inches in some spots in the Garden State.
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COUNTY-BY-COUNTY NUMBERS (sorted by most new)
- Bergen County: 62,195 confirmed cases (424 new), 2,234 confirmed deaths (273 likely)
- Middlesex County: 61,690 confirmed cases (416 new), 1,757 confirmed deaths (221 probable)
- Ocean County: 46,570 confirmed cases (334 new), 1,611 confirmed deaths (104 probable)
- Monmouth County: 46,029 confirmed cases (310 new), 1,199 confirmed deaths (109 likely)
- Hudson County: 58,113 confirmed cases (298 new), 1,720 confirmed deaths (173 likely)
- Essex County: 61,417 confirmed cases (292 new), 2,310 confirmed deaths (257 likely)
- Passaic County: 48,483 confirmed cases (224 new), 1,455 confirmed deaths (163 probable)
- Union County: 45,494 confirmed cases (219 new), 1,505 confirmed deaths (190 probable)
- Morris County: 28,705 confirmed cases (192 new), 860 confirmed deaths (216 probable)
- Atlantic County: 17,920 confirmed cases (147 new), 483 confirmed deaths (24 probable)
- Burlington County: 28,727 confirmed cases (139 new), 647 confirmed deaths (49 likely)
- Mercer County: 24,275 confirmed cases (131 new), 795 confirmed deaths (39 likely)
- Somerset County: 16,869 confirmed cases (125 new), 659 confirmed deaths (97 likely)
- Camden County: 37,126 confirmed cases (119 new), 981 confirmed deaths (71 probable)
- Gloucester County: 19,614 confirmed cases (82 new), 490 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Cumberland County: 11,134 confirmed cases (80 new), 298 confirmed deaths (18 probable)
- Hunterdon County: 5,560 confirmed cases (72 new), 98 confirmed deaths (54 probable)
- Sussex County: 7,129 confirmed cases (59 new), 203 confirmed deaths (57 probable)
- Cape May County: 3,339 confirmed cases (42 new), 145 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Warren County: 5,690 confirmed cases (35 new), 189 confirmed deaths (16 likely)
- Salem County: 3,998 confirmed cases (12 new), 138 confirmed deaths (12 likely)
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 2,895 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in 71 New Jersey hospitals as of Friday night.
That included 737 in critical or intensive care units, with 380 on fans. There were also 333 COVID-19 patients who were discharged Friday.
Hospital admissions have been slowly declining in recent weeks. Monday was the first time in eight days that the number of people admitted to hospital increased. The state peaked at more than 8,000 hospital admissions in April.
SCHOOL CASES
New Jersey officials reported six new outbreaks of the virus in school, bringing the total to 137 outbreaks and 655 cases related to students, teachers and school staff, according to the latest figures.
The outbreaks – defined as cases where people were confirmed to have contracted or transmitted the virus in class or during academic activities – were reported in all 21 counties, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Those numbers do not include students or staff who are believed to have been infected outside of school or cases that cannot be confirmed as outbreaks in school. While the number continues to rise every week, Murphy has said school outbreak statistics remain below what government officials expected when schools reopened for in-person classes.
New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases where contact investigators have determined that two or more students or school personnel have captured or transferred COVID-19 in class or during academic activities at school.
AGE DISTRIBUTION
When broken down by age, the 30- to 49-year-olds make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have contracted the virus (31.1%), followed by the 50-64 (23.5%), 18-29 ( 19.4%), 65 -79 (11.1%), 5-17 (8%), 80 and older (5.2%) and 0-4 (1.6%).
On average, the virus has been more deadly to older residents, especially those with pre-existing conditions. Nearly half of the COVID-19 deaths in the state were among residents 80 and older (46.9%), followed by those 65-79 (33.3%), 50-64 (15.5%) , 30-49 (3.9%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%), and 0-4 (0%).
At least 7,797 of the COVID-19 deaths in the state were among residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That number has risen again at a faster pace in recent months, with the number of deaths in the state’s nursing homes nearly tripling in December.
There are currently active outbreaks in 419 facilities, resulting in 7,055 active cases among residents and 7,166 among staff.
GLOBAL FIGURES
According to a running count from Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 10,535 million positive COVID-19 tests around the world as of Friday morning. More than 2.3 million people have died from complications from the coronavirus.
The US reported the most cases, with more than 26.81 million, and the most deaths, with more than 459,500.
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Rodrigo Torrejon can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RTLnews.