By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
New Jersey now has at least 64,584 coronavirus cases and 2,443 deaths as the outbreak continued to escalate on Monday with about 2,700 new cases announced.
Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to address the latest updates on the pandemic during a 3 p.m. briefing. The state’s tracking website shows 118,097 tests have been reported with a 46.2% positive rate.
There were 7,781 patients hospitalized as of 10 p.m. Sunday with coronavirus or suspected of having the virus. Of those, 1,886 were in critical or intensive care, and 1,611 are on ventilators. That’s about 55% of the state’s capacity for ventilators.
Murphy announced Monday afternoon that New Jersey would join with five other states – New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut – in developing a regional plan to lift restrictions and re-open, but only after the state has pushed safely past the peak of cases.
The partial county-by-county breakdown of cases includes:
- Bergen County: 10,092 with 482 deaths
- Hudson County: 7,879 with 236 deaths
- Essex County: 7,634 with 433 deaths
- Union County: 6,636 with 217 deaths
- Middlesex County: 5,987 with 204 deaths
- Passaic County: 5,950 with 136 deaths
- Monmouth County: 3,875 with 127 deaths
- Ocean County: 3,593 with 141 deaths
- Morris County: 3,225 with 162 deaths
- Somerset County: 1,809 with 85 deaths
- Mercer County: 1,646 with 53 deaths
- Camden County: 1,401 with 35 deaths
- Burlington County: 1,155 with 24 deaths
- Gloucester County: 566 with 9 deaths
- Sussex County: 508 with 38 deaths
- Warren County: 416 with 24 deaths
- Hunterdon County: 325 with 11 deaths
- Atlantic County: 267 with 8 deaths
- Cumberland County: 187 with 3 deaths
- Cape May County: 164 with 9 deaths
- Salem County: 66 with 4 deaths
Another 1,203 cases and 2 deaths remain under investigation to determine where the person resides.
It’s difficult to get a complete picture of exactly how many people in New Jersey currently have COVID-19 because officials say testing has been backed up for up to 14 days. The state also is not reporting significant increases in daily testing, so it is unclear exactly how quickly the virus is spreading.
On Sunday, Murphy downplayed the chances that he’ll begin to lift strict lockdown orders he put in place to battle the pandemic as soon as the beginning of May.
“Any sort of an economic reopening or recovery depends first and foremost on a complete health care recovery,” Murphy said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”
He also said he’s having “discussions with our neighboring states on the whole question of testing, contact tracing, what are the rules of the road going to be for things like bars and restaurants.”
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