By Brent Johnson and Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
New Jersey’s death toll from the coronavirus rose to 15,730 on Thursday, with 177,887 total cases in a little less than five months — though the outbreak here continues to slow, with the Garden State standing alone as the only state in the U.S. that has seen its number of new cases drop the last two full weeks.
Officials reported 23 new confirmed deaths and 344 new cases in the state. Of the total deaths, 13,810 are lab-confirmed and 1,920 are considered probable.
Only four of the newly reported deaths happened in the last five days, Gov. Phil Murphy said. The rest happened earlier and have only recently been confirmed.
New Jersey’s case numbers in recent days have been skewed not only by a nationwide delay in getting test results thanks to a surge in cases across the country but also by a reporting issue with Quest private lab test results. Health officials said they have been working through that backlog, which was initially estimated at 15,000 tests.
“We continue to work to get updated data,” Murphy said Thursday during an unrelated news conference in Long Branch.
The state’s daily positivity rate — the percentage of residents who test positive in one day — was 2.88% on Sunday, the date with the most recent available data.
“The good news is: Over 97% of people tested on Sunday tested negative,” Murphy said. “And we hope that continues to be the case, if not even better.”
The state’s rate of transmission — a key figure officials are using to determine how to further lift restrictions — remained steady at 0.9, below the key benchmark of 1.
When the transmission rate is below 1, that means that each new case is spreading to fewer than one other person and the outbreak is declining. Still, Murphy cautioned Wednesday that the testing result lag could affect the current transmission rate.
Thursday marks the 15th straight day New Jersey has reported fewer than 50 new deaths in one day.
There were 869 people being treated for confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across 70 of New Jersey’s 71 hospitals Wednesday night, according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard. One hospital did not report data.
That’s down from 873 on Tuesday and down significantly down from the state’s peak in mid-April, when there were more than 8,000 patients.
Of those hospitalized Wednesday, 152 were in critical or intensive care and 73 were on ventilators. There were 75 coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals Wednesday.
New Jersey, a densely populated state of 9 million residents, ranks second among U.S. states in total COVID-19 deaths and fifth in total cases.
Nearly half of New Jersey’s COVID-19 deaths have been residents or staff members of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. At least 6,864 of the state’s lab-confirmed deaths have come from those facilities.
The total number of coronavirus cases in New Jersey is cumulative and does not reflect the thousands of residents who have recovered. More than 31,800 residents in the state have recovered from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
There have now been more than 1.8 million COVID-19 tests administered in the state.
COUNTY-BY COUNTY NUMBERS
- Bergen County: 20,133 cases (31 new), 1,771 confirmed deaths (263 probable)
- Hudson County: 19,289 cases (14 new), 1,319 confirmed deaths (175 probable)
- Essex County: 19,198 cases (35 new), 1,847 confirmed deaths (247 probable)
- Middlesex County: 17,442 cases (14 new), 1,184 confirmed deaths (212 probable)
- Passaic County: 17,214 cases (27 new), 1,082 confirmed deaths (156 probable)
- Union County: 16,297 cases (16 new), 1,168 confirmed deaths (175 probable)
- Ocean County: 10,074 cases (28 new), 942 confirmed deaths (70 probable)
- Monmouth County: 9,748 cases (37 new), 751 confirmed deaths (100 probable)
- Camden County: 7,910 cases (29 new), 509 confirmed deaths (55 probable)
- Mercer County: 7,869 cases (14 new), 565 confirmed deaths (43 probable)
- Morris County: 7,016 cases (7 new), 674 confirmed deaths (153 probable)
- Burlington County: 5,502 cases (16 new), 427 confirmed deaths (41 probable)
- Somerset County: 5,094 cases (12 new), 472 confirmed deaths (78 probable)
- Atlantic County: 3,169 cases (12 new), 225 confirmed deaths (15 probable)
- Cumberland County: 3,100 cases (6 new), 141 confirmed deaths (13 probable)
- Gloucester County: 2,894 cases (25 new), 193 confirmed deaths (7 probable)
- Warren County: 1,296 cases (1 new), 155 confirmed deaths (14 probable)
- Sussex County: 1,259 cases (4 new), 158 confirmed deaths (37 probable)
- Hunterdon County: 1,102 cases (1 new), 70 confirmed deaths (56 probable)
- Salem County: 843 cases (2 new),76 confirmed deaths (5 probable)
- Cape May County: 767 cases (5 new), 81 confirmed deaths (5 probable)
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