New Jersey reported another 2,820 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 48 additional deaths on Tuesday, a day after the government, Phil Murphy, announced that the state would be significantly eligible for the vaccine within the next month.
Pre-K to 12th grade teachers, as well as child care and transportation workers, will be eligible on March 15 and essential front-line employees, including restaurant workers and grocery store employees, will be eligible two weeks later, March 29.
2.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in New Jersey as of Tuesday morning. This includes 1.4 million first doses and 721,000 second doses.
That is out of more than 2.5 million doses the state receives, according to a running version of 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 – within the next few months.
The Garden State’s seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases is now 2884, up 10% from a week ago but up 26% from a month ago.
The number of coronavirus patients in New Jersey hospitals increased slightly for the third straight day, growing to 1,915 from Monday night. Yet it is 51% lower than a recent high of 3,872 on December 22nd.
The latest transmission speed in the whole country increased from 0.94 the previous day to 0.97. Any rate lower than 1 means that the outbreak is slowing down, although the number has increased over the past few days.
The vaccination efforts in New Jersey will be strengthened this week with the arrival of the state’s first shipment of the one-dose coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, based in New Brunswick. The state will receive about 73,000 doses in its first group, with a similar amount coming in the coming weeks. This is in addition to the state’s weekly award of the two doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The co-producer Merck & Co. in New Jersey, rival Johnson & Johnson will help produce the vaccine to expand supply faster, a federal official confirmed to the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Despite the new vaccine and increased suitability, government officials stressed on Monday that demand will continue to exceed supply in the coming weeks, so bookings could still be a challenge.
Judith Persichilli, state health commissioner, also warned that cases and hospitalizations could “creep up” in the coming days due to the COVID-19 variants that have emerged. So far, only one variant has been confirmed in New Jersey – the B117 strain that was first discovered in the United Kingdom. The state reported 63 cases of this strain.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live card tracker | Newsletter | Home
New Jersey has now reported 707,099 confirm coronavirus cases from 10.7 million PCR tests in almost one year since the state reported its first case on March 4, 2020. There were also 88,686 positive antigen tests. These cases are considered likely, and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests may overlap with the confirmed PCR tests, as they are sometimes given at the same time.
The state of 9 million people reported that 23,321 residents died from complications related to COVID-19, including 20,990 confirmed deaths and 2,331 deaths considered probable.
COUNTY COUNTY NUMBERS (sorted by most new cases)
- Bergen County: 69,496 confirmed cases (347 new), 2,340 confirmed deaths (281 likely)
- Hudson County: 64,178 confirmed cases (316 new), 1,831 confirmed deaths (180 likely)
- Monmouth County: 52,051 confirmed cases (255 new), 1,285 confirmed deaths (122 likely)
- Middlesex County: 68,044 confirmed cases (224 new), 1,871 confirmed deaths (229 likely)
- Essex County: 67,907 confirmed cases (220 new), 2,414 confirmed deaths (269 likely)
- Passaic County: 52,362 confirmed cases (188 new), 1,525 confirmed deaths (173 likely)
- Morris County: 32,443 confirmed cases (185 new), 897 confirmed deaths (227 likely)
- Union County: 49,373 confirmed cases (181 new), 1,571 confirmed deaths (197 likely)
- Ocean County: 52,320 confirmed cases (180 new), 1,749 confirmed deaths (117 likely)
- Camden County: 39,656 confirmed cases (104 new), 1,070 confirmed deaths (84 likely)
- Burlington County: 31,082 confirmed cases (90 new), 692 confirmed deaths (54 likely)
- Mercer County: 26,325 confirmed cases (83 new), 838 confirmed deaths (39 likely)
- Somerset County: 18,831 confirmed cases (73 new), 683 confirmed deaths (102 likely)
- Atlantic County: 19,864 confirmed cases (69 new), 546 confirmed deaths (27 likely)
- Gloucester County: 21,196 confirmed cases (68 new), 516 confirmed deaths (28 likely)
- Sussex County: 8,031 confirmed cases (39 new), 209 confirmed deaths (64 likely)
- Cumberland County: 12,240 confirmed cases (37 new), 343 confirmed deaths (27 likely)
- Warren County: 6,410 confirmed cases (37 new), 198 confirmed deaths (19 likely)
- Hunterdon County: 6,359 confirmed cases (36 new), 105 confirmed deaths (54 likely)
- Salem County: 4,263 confirmed cases (13 new), 152 confirmed deaths (12 likely)
- Cape May County: 3,724 confirmed cases (6 new), 155 confirmed deaths (26 likely)
VACCINATIONS BY COUNTRY
- ATLANTIC COUNTRY – 69 009 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 240 521 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 110 865 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 125 484 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY – 32 021 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 30 399 doses administered
- ESSEX LAND – 172 533 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 79 326 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 98 989 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 29,184 doses administered
- TRADE COUNTRY – 69,917 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTRY – 170 446 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 166 337 doses administered
- MORRIS LAND – 160 190 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 138,650 doses administered
- OUTSIDE – 60 168 doses administered
- PASSAIC COUNTY – 95 874 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 14 089 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTRY – 88 046 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 33 320 doses administered
- UNION COUNTRY – 107 547 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTRY – 17 672 doses administered
- WARREN-LAND – 21 568 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There was 1,915 patients have been admitted to the hospital since Monday night with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases in 70 of New Jersey’s 71 hospitals – 14 more than the night before, according to the state dashboard.
This included 395 in critical or intensive care (one more than the previous night), with 230 on fans (two more).
There was also 147 COVID-19 patients were discharged Monday.
Hospitalizations peaked at more than 8,000 patients during the first wave of the pandemic in April.
SCHOOL SUBJECTS
New Jersey reported 152 coronavirus outbreaks at school, resulting in 737 cases among students, teachers and school staff, according to academic year.
The state defines school outbreaks as cases where contact detectives determined that two or more students or school staff were caught or transferred COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school. The numbers do not include students or staff who are presumably outside the school or cases that cannot be confirmed as outbreaks in the school.
There are about 1.4 million public school students and teachers across the state, although teaching methods vary amid the outbreak, with some schools providing personalized instruction, some using a hybrid format and others being quite out of control.
Murphy said Monday that officials, who will soon be eligible teachers to receive the vaccine, “schools” across New Jersey “fully expect to return to personal learning” safe and responsible “when the next school year begins in September, if not earlier.
“I would be very surprised and disappointed if we did not,” he said.
AGE BREAKS OUT
Degraded by age, the 30- to 49-year-olds make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who contracted the virus (31%), followed by those 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 to older residents, especially those with a pre-existing condition. Nearly half of COVID-19 deaths were among residents 80 and older (47.25%), followed by 65-79 (32.76%), 50-64 (15.58%), 30-49 ( 4.02%), 18-29 (0.37%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0.02%).
At least 7,911 of the COVID-19 deaths in the state were among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
There are currently active outbreaks at 337 facilities, resulting in 6329 active cases among residents and 6 471 among staff members.
GENERAL NUMBERS
As of early Tuesday afternoon, there were more than 114.6 million positive COVID-19 tests worldwide, according to a running count from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.5 million people have died from coronavirus-associated complications.
The U.S. reported the most cases, more than 28.6 million, and the most deaths, more than 515,000.
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Brent Johnson can be reached at [email protected].