New Jersey health officials on Friday reported another 3,723 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 93 additional deaths as the vaccination effort increased to 925,000 doses administered following a setback in scheduling due to a prolonged winter storm earlier this week.
The seven-day average for confirmed positive tests dropped to 3,232, down 28% from a week ago and 30% from a month ago. That’s the lowest seven-day average for new cases since Nov. 14.
Gov. Phil Murphy provided the latest update at a coronavirus briefing in Trenton hours 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 venues including gyms, personal care services and casinos were included in the 35% expansion.
Murphy said more than 745,000 first doses of the vaccines have been administered as the amount of daily shots increases.
“They are not only growing, but the rate of growth is picking up steam,” Murphy said. “In the past week, the number of initial doses has increased by more than 135,400. That’s a 22% increase. And, the number of residents who have now received both doses – whether it be the Moderna or Pfizer’s vaccine – that number has grown by 69,258. And that is a nearly 63% increase in just the past seven days. We clearly need more doses.”
Murphy said New Jersey’s 71 hospitals reported 2,916 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, down 66 patients than the previous day. Murphy’s hospital number differed from the number reported on the state dashboard.
New Jersey has now lost 21,886 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak – 19,699 confirmed fatalities and 2,187 considered probable. The state has reported 351 confirmed deaths in the first five days of February. The death toll for January was 2,377 confirmed fatalities, the most in any month since May.
The total number of confirmed cases is now 637,357 out of more than 9.5 million PCR tests. There have also been 75,967 positive antigen tests, which the state recently began reporting publicly. Those cases are considered probable and health officials have warned the positive antigen tests could overlap with the confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes given in tandem.
The rate of transmission reported Friday dropped to .092, down from 0.94 on Thursday. Any number below 1 indicates the outbreak is slowing.
The positivity rate for tests conducted on Monday, the most recent day available, was 6.83% from the 17,884 tests administered. Testing numbers for the first half of this week, however, are likely skewed by monster snow storm that buried half of the state in more than a foot of snow with totals over 30 inches in some spots.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
COUNTY-BY-COUNTY NUMBERS (sorted by most new)
- Bergen County: 61,778 confirmed cases (486 new), 2,231 confirmed deaths (273 probable)
- Passaic County: 48,298 confirmed cases (378 new), 1,451 confirmed deaths (163 probable)
- Ocean County: 46,235 confirmed cases (345 new), 1,599 confirmed deaths (104 probable)
- Middlesex County: 61,269 confirmed cases (333 new), 1,747 confirmed deaths (221 probable)
- Hudson County: 57,817 confirmed cases (322 new), 1,715 confirmed deaths (173 probable)
- Essex County: 61,125 confirmed cases (310 new), 2,306 confirmed deaths (257 probable)
- Monmouth County: 45,720 confirmed cases (242 new), 1,194 confirmed deaths (109 probable)
- Morris County: 28,511 confirmed cases (203 new), 859 confirmed deaths (216 probable)
- Burlington County: 28,587 confirmed cases (172 new), 645 confirmed deaths (49 probable)
- Union County: 45,280 confirmed cases (165 new), 1,502 confirmed deaths (190 probable)
- Atlantic County: 17,775 confirmed cases (141 new), 475 confirmed deaths (24 probable)
- Camden County: 37,009 confirmed cases (139 new), 978 confirmed deaths (71 probable)
- Somerset County: 16,745 confirmed cases (108 new), 658 confirmed deaths (97 probable)
- Gloucester County: 19,528 confirmed cases (101 new), 486 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Mercer County: 24,139 confirmed cases (82 new), 791 confirmed deaths (39 probable)
- Cumberland County: 11,048 confirmed cases (55 new), 296 confirmed deaths (18 probable)
- Sussex County: 7,070 confirmed cases (31 new), 203 confirmed deaths (57 probable)
- Warren County: 5,655 confirmed cases (31 new), 185 confirmed deaths (16 probable)
- Salem County: 3,986 confirmed cases (22 new), 138 confirmed deaths (12 probable)
- Cape May County: 3,293 confirmed cases (21 new), 143 confirmed deaths (22 probable)
- Hunterdon County: 5,487 confirmed cases (17 new), 97 confirmed deaths (54 probable)
VACCINATIONS
There have been 925,579 vaccine doses administered in New Jersey so far, according to the state’s dashboard. Of those, 745,552 were the first of two doses people will receive.
That’s out of more than 1.43 million doses the state has received from the federal government, according to a running tally by the federal Centers for Disease Control.
This week’s winter storm forced all six of the state’s mega sites, as well as likely many other facilities that give vaccinations, to close for two days.
VACCINATIONS BY COUNTY
- ATLANTIC COUNTY: 28,650 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY: 102,248 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY: 46,344 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY: 53,393 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY: 13,972 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY: 13,934 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY: 72,856 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY: 31,958 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY: 42,429 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY: 12,429 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY: 25,450 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY: 68,625 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY: 70,246 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY: 67,385 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY: 56,295 doses administered
- PASSAIC COUNTY: 43,984 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY: 5,996 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY: 35,856 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY: 15,048 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY: 45,128 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY: 9,025 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE: 33,632 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY: 30,696 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 2,916 patients hospitalized with confirmed (2,623) or suspected (202) COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night.
That included 515 in critical or intensive care, with 342 on ventilators.
There were also 436 COVID-19 patients discharged Thursday while 377 patients were admitted, according to Murphy.
Hospitalizations had been slowly declining in recent weeks. Monday marked the first time in eight days the number of people hospitalized increased. The state hit a high of more than 8,000 hospitalizations in April.
SCHOOL CASES
New Jersey officials reported six new in-school outbreaks of the virus, bringing the total to 137 outbreaks and 655 cases linked among students, teachers and school staff, according to the latest numbers.
The outbreaks — defined as cases in which people were confirmed to have caught or transmitted the virus in the classroom 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 believed to have been infected outside school or cases that can’t be confirmed as in-school outbreaks. Though the numbers keep rising every week, Murphy has said the school outbreak statistics remain below what state officials were expecting when schools reopened for in-person classes.
New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases where contact tracers determined two or more students or school staff caught or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school.
AGE BREAKDOWN
Broken down by age, those 30 to 49 years old make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have caught the virus (31.1%), followed by those 50-64 (23.5%), 18-29 (19.3%), 65-79 (11.1%), 5-17 (7.9%), 80 and older (5.3%), and 0-4 (1.6%).
On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with preexisting conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (47.49%), followed by those 65-79 (32.56%), 50-64 (15.52%), 30-49 (4.05%), 18-29 (0.36%), 5-17 (0%), and 0-4 (0.02%).
At least 7,713 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That number has been rising again at a steeper rate in recent months, with deaths at the state’s nursing homes nearly tripling in December.
There are currently active outbreaks at 435 facilities, resulting in 7,338 active cases among residents and 7,929 among staffers.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Friday morning, there have been more than 104.9 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.28 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 26.68 million, and the most deaths, at more than 455,800.
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.