New Jersey announced 1,301 new cases on Thursday, with many coming from the hotspots of Ocean and Monmouth counties.
By Riley Yates and NIck Devlin, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
As coronavirus cases leap in New Jersey, there are plenty of trend lines that raise concern, one epidemiologist says.
Hospitalizations are on the rise, a sign that people are being more severely sickened, said Stephanie Silvera, a professor of public health at Montclair State University. The number of patients in intensive care and on ventilators have also been inching up recently, she said.
Put together, how serious could the signs of a reinvigorated outbreak be?
“I don’t think we’re in panic stage, but we are at a time when we should have a healthy level of concern,” Silvera said.
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On Thursday, New Jersey saw its biggest single-day increase in coronavirus cases since May, with Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli warning that could escalate quickly.
“We are anticipating a second wave,” Persichilli said. “This wave has a potential to become a surge.”
New Jersey announced 1,301 new cases on Thursday, with many coming from the hotspots of Ocean and Monmouth counties. Hospitalizations reached 652, an increase of 61 patients from just the day before, and a level not seen since Aug. 6, when 754 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
There were 152 people in intensive care, the highest since July 22. There were 52 people on ventilators, the fourth consecutive day of increases and the first time that had exceeded 50 since Aug. 5.
The benchmarks are “all starting to trend back up, and I think that is when the concern comes back into play,” Silvera said, especially as the weather turns and people move further indoors.
