New Jersey health officials announced 2,171 confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday and 15 additional deaths as hospitalizations continued to fall and the state prepares to welcome sports fans back into arenas.
Continuing on a steady decrease, the number of people hospitalized with coronavirus as of Friday night dropped to 1,849 — the lowest it has been since Nov. 12, according to state data.
Gov. Phil Murphy announced the latest numbers on Twitter Sunday afternoon.
New Jersey’s sports and entertainment venues will be allowed to welcome fans for the first time in nearly a year on Monday, with 10% capacity limits on large indoor venues. Outdoor venues can have 15% capacity in fixed seats. In addition to professional sports, a limited number of people will be allowed to attend collegiate games.
There have been 1,960,629 coronavirus vaccine doses administered in New Jersey as of Saturday afternoon, including 1,295,891 first doses and 663,855 second doses.
That’s out of more than 2.47 million doses the state has received, according to a running tally by 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.
Previously, Murphy said New Jersey could get an initial shipment of 70,000 doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine next week. The vaccine was approved for emergency use on Saturday.
The positivity rate for tests conducted on Tuesday, the most recent day available, was 6.38% based on 53,495 tests. The statewide rate of transmission increased to 0.91, up from .89. Any rate below 1 means the outbreak is slowing.
New Jersey has now reported 701,725 confirmed coronavirus cases out of more than 10.56 million PCR tests in the nearly 12 months since the state reported its first case March 4, 2020. There have also been 87,631 positive antigen tests. Those cases are considered probable, and health officials have warned that positive antigen tests could overlap with the confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes given in tandem.
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The state, which has 9 million people, reported 23,253 residents have died from complications related to COVID-19 including 2,331 fatalities considered probable. That includes 1,589 confirmed coronavirus deaths reported in February.
New Jersey has identified 63 cases of the COVID-19 variant first identified in the U.K. with eight new cases reported Friday.
VACCINES BY COUNTY
- ATLANTIC COUNTY – 59,983 doses administered
- BERGEN COUNTY – 223,170 doses administered
- BURLINGTON COUNTY – 100,094 doses administered
- CAMDEN COUNTY – 111,622 doses administered
- CAPE MAY COUNTY – 28,118 doses administered
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 26,231 doses administered
- ESSEX COUNTY – 156,101 doses administered
- GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 67,869 doses administered
- HUDSON COUNTY – 91,200 doses administered
- HUNTERDON COUNTY – 24,180 doses administered
- MERCER COUNTY – 56,013 doses administered
- MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 150,213 doses administered
- MONMOUTH COUNTY – 143,805 doses administered
- MORRIS COUNTY – 144,748 doses administered
- OCEAN COUNTY – 119,072 doses administered
- PASSAIC COUNTY – 88,570 doses administered
- SALEM COUNTY – 12,438 doses administered
- SOMERSET COUNTY – 74,233 doses administered
- SUSSEX COUNTY – 29,418 doses administered
- UNION COUNTY – 94,493 doses administered
- WARREN COUNTY – 17,917 doses administered
- UNKNOWN COUNTY – 84,776 doses administered
- OUT OF STATE – 56,365 doses administered
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 1,849 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Saturday night — 70 fewer than the previous night and the lowest since Nov. 12, according to the state’s dashboard.
That included 393 in critical or intensive care (11 fewer than the previous night), with 229 on ventilators (19 fewer).
There were also 245 COVID-19 patients discharged Saturday.
Hospitalizations peaked at more than 8,000 patients during the first wave of the pandemic in April.
SCHOOL CASES
New Jersey on Tuesday reported eight new in-school coronavirus outbreaks, bringing the total to 152 cases, which have resulted in 737 cases among students, teachers and school staff this academic year, according to the state’s dashboard.
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.
School outbreaks have been reported in all 21 counties, according to the state.
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 last summer.
There are about 1.4 million public school students and teachers across the state, though teaching methods amid the outbreak have varied, with some schools teaching in-person, some using a hybrid format and others remaining all-remote.
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%), 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 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 (47.25%), followed by those 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 7,906 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
There are currently active outbreaks at 342 facilities, resulting in 6,413 active cases among residents and 6,538 among staffers.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of early Saturday, there have been more than 113.89 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.52 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 28.5 million, and the most deaths, at more than 512,100.
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Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.