New Jersey’s seven-day average for confirmed cases was 2,400 on Tuesday, down 17% from a week ago and 33% from a month ago. The state-level positive rate for the tests performed on Thursday, the most recent day with available data, was 8.93%. The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers the positivity rates above 10% to be “high”. The national transmission rate for Tuesday was 0.89. A transmission rate below 1 is an indication that the outbreak decreases as each new case leads to less than one additional new case. Cases, transmission rates and hospitalizations are flattening and have started to decline in recent weeks. There were 790 patients with confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus reported in the state’s 71 hospitals as of Monday night. Hospital admissions are still significantly lower than when they peaked at 6,089 on January 10 during the micron wave. Of the patients, 87 were in the intensive care unit and 25 were on ventilators. At least 93 people were evacuated in the 24 hours that ended Monday, according to state figures. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now lists 11 New Jersey counties with “high” transmission rates – Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Sussex and Warren. Those in high-risk areas are advised to wear a mask indoors on public transportation and public transportation and be informed about vaccinations, according to the CDC. Ten counties belong to the medium risk category: Bergen, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Pasaic, Salem, Somerset and Union. Masks are not recommended in medium and low risk areas. TOTAL NUMBERS New Jersey has reported a total of 2,092,487 confirmed COVID-19 cases in more than two years since the state reported the first known case on March 4, 2020. The Garden State has also recorded about 349,150 positive antigen tests or rapid tests, which are considered possible cases. And there are many cases that have probably never been counted, including positive home tests that are not included in state numbers. The state of 9.2 million has reported 33,879 deaths from COVID-19 —30,798 confirmed deaths and 3,081 potential deaths. New Jersey has the eighth highest number of coronavirus deaths per capita in the United States – behind Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas – according to the latest figures released Monday. Last summer, the state had the highest number of deaths per capita in the country. The latest figures follow a large study that revealed that even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain. Long-term COVID – the term commonly used to describe the symptoms that come from the virus long after a person no longer comes out positive – has been found to affect between 10% and 30% of those who become infected, whether they have a mild or serious case. In New Jersey, that would mean that about 600,000 of the more than 2 million who have tested positive for COVID since the onset of the pandemic either have or have had COVID for some time. VACCINATION NUMBERS More than 6.92 million of the 8.46 million eligible people living, working or studying in New Jersey have received the initial vaccination cycle and more than 7.8 million have received the first dose since vaccinations started here at 15 December 2020. More than 3.92 million people in the state eligible for aid have received one. That number could rise after the FDA approved booster vaccines for healthy children between the ages of 5 and 11. U.S. regulators have approved the baby booster in the hope that an extra dose of the vaccine will boost their protection as the infections continue to spread. NUMBERS OF SCHOOL AND LONG-TERM CARE For the week ended June 5, with 52.9% of schools reporting data, another 5,799 COVID-19 cases were reported among staff (2,099) and students (3,700) in all New Jersey schools. Since the beginning of the academic year, there have been 140,385 students and 42,433 school staff affected by COVID-19 in New Jersey, although the state has never had more than two-thirds of school districts report data in a single week. The state provides all student and staff cases separately from those considered to be intra-school transmissions, which are narrowly defined as three or more cases linked through contact detection. New Jersey has reported a total of 965 cases within the school, including 6,997 cases between students and staff. This includes 8 new cases in the last weekly report ending June 6. The state reported 33 outbreaks within the school last week. At least 9,153 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths were among residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state figures. There have been active cases in 367 facilities, resulting in 4,357 current cases among residents and 4,034 cases in staff, according to the latest figures. GLOBAL NUMBERS As of Tuesday, more than 536 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, and more than 6.3 million people had died from the virus. The US has reported the most cases (over 85.6 million) and deaths (at least 1,011,641) from any country. More than 11.55 billion doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide. Thank you for counting on us to provide local news that you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with voluntary assistance. You can contact Deion Johnson at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DeionRJohhnson
