New Jersey on Saturday reported another 3,783 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 78 additional deaths, as the number of those vaccinated continued to rise while nearly 250,000 vaccine doses earmarked for the state were expected to help with the struggling rollout.
The latest update from Gov. Phil Murphy 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 venues including gyms, personal care services and casinos were included in the 35% expansion.
New Jersey’s 71 hospitals reported 2,895 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, down 21 patients than the previous day. The number of patients in intensive care ballooned 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 probable. The state has reported 429 confirmed deaths in the first six 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 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 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 .9, down from 0.92 on Friday. Any number below 1 indicates the outbreak is slowing.
The positivity rate for tests conducted on Tuesday, the most recent day available, was 8.53% from the 30,160 tests administered. However, testing numbers for the first half of this week are likely skewed by a massive snow storm that dumped more than a foot of snow with totals over 30 inches in some spots in the Garden State.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
COUNTY-BY-COUNTY NUMBERS (sorted by most new)
- Bergen County: 62,195 confirmed cases (424 new), 2,234 confirmed deaths (273 probable)
- 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 probable)
- Hudson County: 58,113 confirmed cases (298 new), 1,720 confirmed deaths (173 probable)
- Essex County: 61,417 confirmed cases (292 new), 2,310 confirmed deaths (257 probable)
- 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 probable)
- Mercer County: 24,275 confirmed cases (131 new), 795 confirmed deaths (39 probable)
- Somerset County: 16,869 confirmed cases (125 new), 659 confirmed deaths (97 probable)
- 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 probable)
- Salem County: 3,998 confirmed cases (12 new), 138 confirmed deaths (12 probable)
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 2,895 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Friday night.
That included 737 in critical or intensive care, with 380 on ventilators. There were also 333 COVID-19 patients discharged Friday.
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 (19.4%), 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 for older residents, especially those with preexisting conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been 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 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 419 facilities, resulting in 7,055 active cases among residents and 7,166 among staffers.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Friday morning, there have been more than 10535 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.3 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 26.81 million, and the most deaths, at more than 459,500.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.