New Jersey reported another 3,783 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 78 additional deaths on Saturday as the number of vaccinations continued to rise, while nearly 250,000 doses of vaccine are expected to help the state with the struggling rollout.
The latest update from Governor Phil Murphy was posted on Twitter and comes a day after the signing of a law to increase options for restaurants, bars and distilleries outside. In addition, the increase in indoor eating ability from 25% to 35% took effect on Friday morning. Other venues, including gyms, personal care services and casinos, were included in the 35% expansion.
In New Jersey’s 71 hospitals, 2,895 patients were reported hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, which was 21 patients less than the previous day. The number of patients in intensive care increased to 737, an increase of 222 over the previous day.
New Jersey has now lost 21,964 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak – 19,777 confirmed deaths and 2,187 considered probable. The state reported 429 confirmed deaths in the first six days of February. The death toll for January was 2,377 confirmed deaths, the most 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 were also 76,748 positive antigen tests, which the state recently began conducting in public. These cases are considered probable and health officials have warned that the positive antigen tests may overlap with the confirmed PCR tests, as they are sometimes given at the same time.
The transmission rate reported on Friday dropped to 0.9, from 0.92 on Friday. Any number below 1 indicates that the outbreak is slowing down.
The positivity rate for tests available on Tuesday, the latest day, was 8.53% of the 30,160 tests administered. Test numbers for the first half of this week, however, are likely to be skewed by a massive snowstorm that has dumped more than a foot of snow with a total of more than 30 inches in some places in the Garden State.
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COUNTY 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 likely)
- Ocean County: 46,570 confirmed cases (334 new), 1,611 confirmed deaths (104 likely)
- 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 likely)
- Union County: 45,494 confirmed cases (219 new), 1,505 confirmed deaths (190 likely)
- Morris County: 28,705 confirmed cases (192 new), 860 confirmed deaths (216 likely)
- Atlantic County: 17,920 confirmed cases (147 new), 483 confirmed deaths (24 likely)
- 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 likely)
- Gloucester County: 19,614 confirmed cases (82 new), 490 confirmed deaths (22 likely)
- Cumberland County: 11,134 confirmed cases (80 new), 298 confirmed deaths (18 likely)
- Hunterdon County: 5,560 confirmed cases (72 new), 98 confirmed deaths (54 likely)
- Sussex County: 7,129 confirmed cases (59 new), 203 confirmed deaths (57 likely)
- Cape May County: 3,339 confirmed cases (42 new), 145 confirmed deaths (22 likely)
- 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 admitted to the hospital with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases in the 71 hospitals in New Jersey.
It included 737 in critical or intensive care, with 380 fans. 333 COVID-19 patients were also discharged on Friday.
Hospitalizations have been slowly declining over the past few weeks. Monday was the first time in eight days that the number of people admitted to hospital has increased. The state reached a peak of more than 8,000 hospitalizations in April.
SCHOOL SUBJECTS
According to the latest figures, officials in New Jersey reported six new outbreaks of the virus in the school, linking a total of 137 outbreaks and 655 cases among students, teachers and school staff.
According to the COVID-19 dashboard, outbreaks – defined as cases in which it was confirmed that people contracted or transmitted the virus in the classroom or during academic activities – were reported.
These numbers do not include students or staff who are suspected of being infected outside the school, or cases that cannot be confirmed as outbreaks in the school. Although the numbers continue to rise every week, Murphy said the statistics for school outbreaks are lower than government officials expected when schools reopened for personal classes.
New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases where contact detectives determined that two or more students or school staff caught or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school.
AGE BREAKS OUT
Degraded by age, those aged 30 to 49 form the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who contracted the virus (31.1%), followed by those aged 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 was more deadly to older residents, especially those with a pre-existing condition. Nearly half of COVID-19 deaths were among residents 80 and older (46.9%), followed by 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 members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The number has risen sharply again in recent months, with deaths at the state’s old age homes almost tripling in December.
There are currently active outbreaks at 419 facilities, leading to 7,055 active cases among residents and 7,166 among staff.
GENERAL NUMBERS
As of Friday morning, there were more than 10,535 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.3 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. reported the most cases, more than 26.81 million, and the most deaths, more than 459,500.
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Rodrigo Torrejon can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.