New Jersey on Sunday reported one COVID-19 death and 2,783 new confirmed positive tests as six additional counties were upgraded to “average” transmission speeds. The CDC does not recommend healthy people wear masks in the “low” and “middle” areas.
The average seven-day value for confirmed cases for the state increased to 2,698 on Sunday, up 24% from a week ago and 124% from a month ago.
Hospitalizations, which are usually about two weeks behind the trend, are also on the rise this month. As of Saturday night, there were 600 patients with confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus at 71 hospitals in the state.
Hospitalizations still remain significantly lower than when they peaked at 6089 on January 10 during the omicron wave.
According to state figures, there were at least 131 people discharged during the same 24-hour period ending Saturday night. Of the hospitalized, 68 are in the intensive care unit and 28 are on ventilators.
The speed of transmission in New Jersey across the state was 1.21 on Saturday. When the baud rate is above 1, this means that each new case leads to at least one additional case and the outbreak expands.
The percentage of positive for tests conducted on Tuesday, the last day with available data, is 8.65%.
The state on Sunday also reported 633 possible cases of rapid antigen tests at medical facilities.
After months of listing all 21 New Jersey counties with “low” transmission speeds, 14 counties are now “medium,” according to an update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These are six more counties than the community levels set on April 28.
Based on Thursday’s community levels, Bergen, Burlington, Cape May, Essex, Hudson, Hunterden, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Maurice, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Ocean counties already have “average” transmission levels. Healthy people in the low and middle zones are no longer recommended to wear masks.
COVID-19 strain BA.2 has been circulating in New Jersey for weeks, albeit at a much slower rate than the omicron jump in December and January. Officials said the omicron stealth sub-variant appears to be easier to spread, but generally does not cause more severe disease.
For the week ending 16 April, BA.2 accounted for 97.2% of the positive tests taken (compared to 88.9% in the previous week), while the omicron variant accounted for 2% of the positive tests taken.
TOTAL NUMBER
New Jersey has reported a total of 1,970,847 confirmed cases of COVID-19 from more than 17.6 million PCR tests conducted in more than two years since the state reported its first known case on March 4, 2020.
There are also 318,103 positive antigen or rapid tests registered in Garden State that are considered probable. And there are many cases that have probably never been counted, including positive tests at home that are not included in state numbers.
The state of 9.2 million people reported 33,488 deaths from COVID-19 during that time – 30,442 confirmed deaths and 3,046 probable.
New Jersey has the eighth highest number of coronavirus deaths per capita in the United States – after Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas – according to the latest data released on Monday. Last summer, the state still had the most deaths per capita in the country.
The latest data follows a large study that reveals that even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain. Prolonged COVID – the term commonly used to describe the symptoms of the virus long after a person no longer gives a positive test – has been found to affect between 10% and 30% of those infected, whether mild or severe.
VACCINATION NUMBERS
More than 6.88 million of the 8.46 million eligible people living, working or studying in New Jersey received the initial course of vaccinations and more than 7.79 million received the first dose since the start of vaccinations here at 15 December 2020
More than 3.6 million people in the state who qualify for the booster have received one.
SCHOOL NUMBERS AND LONG-TERM CARE
For the week ending April 24, with another 58% of reporting schools, another 3,212 cases of COVID-19 were reported among staff (983) and students (2,229) in New Jersey schools.
Since the beginning of the school year, there have been 109,723 students and 31,356 school staff infected with COVID-19 in New Jersey, although the state has never had more than two-thirds of the school districts reporting data in any is a week.
The state provides general cases to students and staff separately from those considered to be a school transfer, which is narrowly defined as three or more cases involving contact tracing.
New Jersey reported a total of 653 school outbreaks, including 4,538 cases among students and staff. This includes 20 new data hotspots reported last week.
At least 9,041 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths were among residents and employees of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.
There were active outbreaks in 226 establishments, leading to 2,559 current cases among residents and 2,511 cases among staff, according to the latest figures.
GLOBAL FIGURES
As of Sunday, more than 517 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 6.2 million people dying from the virus.
The United States reports the most cases (more than 81 million) and deaths (at least 997,503) from each nation.
More than 11 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered worldwide.
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Stephen Rhodes can be found at srodas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @stevenrodasnj.
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