Gov. Phil Murphy stressed the sharp increase in cases and deaths today may be catching up on reporting cases from Easter weekend.
By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Updated 3:51 PM; Today
Despite improving projections, the coronavirus outbreak in New Jersey continues to escalate, with state officials Tuesday reporting at least 68,824 total cases and 2,805 total deaths, marking an increase of 4,059 positive tests and 365 new fatalities in the last 24 hours.
The latest death toll marks the largest one-day increase in fatalities in the Garden State since the outbreak started in early March.
Gov. Phil Murphy repeated Tuesday there’s evidence that the rate of increase is slowing and that social distancing efforts including a near-lockdown stay-at-home order have begun to take hold. But the state has yet to hit its plateau.
Murphy stressed the sharp increase in cases and deaths Tuesday may be catching up on reporting cases from Easter weekend.
New Jersey has 128,604 residents who have been tested for coronavirus and 70,950 have tested negative, according to state Department of Health’s website. The positivity rate is about 45%, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.
Murphy warned again of a possible “boomerang” of the virus if social distancing is lax.
“Let’s only go through this once,” the governor said during his daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton. “We have to keep our foot on the gas. We have to stay at home.”
As of 10:30 p.m. Monday, 8,185 people in New Jersey were hospitalized with COVID-19 or under investigation for it. Of those, 2,051 were in critical care and 1,626 were in ventilators.
That’s a 4% increase in hospitalizations from the day before, Persichilli said.
Between 10 p.m. Sunday and 10 p.m. Monday, 514 patients who were hospitalized with he virus were discharged.
Of the new deaths reported, 27 were residents at longterm care facilities, officials said. The state’s has confirmed coronavirus cases at 342 of 375 longterm care facilities for a total of 5,945 residents.
The partial county-by-county breakdown of cases includes:
- Bergen County: 10,426 with 550 deaths
- Hudson County: 8,242 with 277 deaths
- Essex County: 8,212 with 535 deaths
- Union County: 7,265 with 238 deaths
- Passaic County: 6,438 with 156 deaths
- Middlesex County: 6,313 with 216 deaths
- Monmouth County: 4,003 with 145 deaths
- Ocean County: 3,833 with 149 deaths
- Morris County: 3,424 with 192 deaths
- Somerset County: 1,911 with 91 Deaths
- Mercer County: 1,731 with 71 deaths
- Camden County: 1,477 with 41 deaths
- Burlington County: 1,207 with 28 deaths
- Gloucester County: 587 with 11 deaths
- Sussex County: 535 with 39 deaths
- Warren County: 442 with 25 deaths
- Hunterdon County: 349 with 11 deaths
- Atlantic County: 284 with 11 deaths
- Cumberland County: 201 with 3 deaths
- Cape May County: 169 with 10 deaths
- Salem County: 73 with 4 deaths
Another 1,702 cases and two deaths are still pending investigation to determine where the person resides.
The breakdown of ethnicity among the new deaths:
- 51.5% white
- 22.2% black
- 15.6% Hispanic
- 5.5% Asian
- 3.5% other
New Jersey, a state of 9 million residents, continues to have the second-most number of cases and deaths of COVID-19 among U.S. states. Only New York has more of each.
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