N.J. coronavirus deaths increase to 4,202. Total cases hit 85,301

Performer Ashlee Montague dances in Times Square, New York, during the pandemic.

By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Deaths from the coronavirus New Jersey climbed to 4,202 on Sunday, while total cases rose to 85,301, as state officials confirmed 132 new fatalities and 3,915 new positive tests.

“Sadly, we’ve lost another 132 New Jerseyans,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in an afternoon tweet. “We’ve now lost a total of 4,202 souls to #COVID19.”

Murphy did not host a daily briefing on Sunday, as has been the practice in recent weeks. The numbers on the outbreak were released on the state Department of Health coronavirus page.

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The number of deaths associated with New Jersey’s long-term care facilities continued to increase Sunday, with 1,730 fatalities. There are 420 facilities with at least one coronavirus case.

it was the fourth consecutive day the number of patients in the hospital for coronavirus declined. M

The state had 7,495 patients hospitalized for coronavirus or suspected of having the virus as of 10 p.m. Saturday, down from a high of 8,293 on Tuesday. Of those hospitalized, 1,940 are in critical or intensive care and 1,628 are on ventilators.

State officials reported 85,387 negative tests to date. There’s at least 13 towns in New Jersey with more than 1,000 coronavirus cases.

The county-by-county breakdown of cases includes:

  • Bergen County: 12,639 with 767 deaths
  • Hudson County: 10,486 with 452 deaths
  • Essex County: 10,304 with 740 deaths
  • Union County: 9,609 with 372 deaths
  • Passaic County: 8,288 with 250 deaths
  • Middlesex County: 8,017 with 329 deaths
  • Monmouth County: 4,669 with 226 deaths
  • Ocean County: 4,648 with 217 deaths
  • Morris County: 4,136 with 257 deaths
  • Mercer County: 2,395 with 113 deaths
  • Somerset County: 2,384 with 158 deaths
  • Camden County: 2,131 with 74 deaths
  • Burlington County: 1,587 with 58 deaths
  • Gloucester County: 737 with 24 deaths
  • Sussex County: 659 with 62 deaths
  • Warren County: 592 with 44 deaths
  • Hunterdon County: 407 with 18 deaths
  • Atlantic County: 398 with 19 deaths
  • Cumberland County: 308 with 4 deaths
  • Cape May County: 206 with 14 deaths
  • Salem County: 116 with 4 deaths

Another 585 positive tests are under investigation to determine where the person resides.

Coronavirus cases as of Sunday, April 19

LOCATIONCASESDEATHS
New Jersey85,3014,202
New York State242,78614,832
New York City127,00013,157
Pennsylvania32,2841,112
Philadelphia9,214365
United States742,44239,291
Worldwide2,374,141163,372

Note: Data includes positive cases of COVID-19 reported by the CDC, state health officials and other health agencies since Jan. 21. New York State totals include New York City. Pennsylvania totals include Philadelphia. Updated: April 19 at 2:10 p.m.Table: Len Melisurgo | NJ Advance Media  Source: Johns Hopkins Univ., nymag.com, Philadelphia Health Dept., State Health Departments in NJ, NY, PAGet the dataCreated with Datawrapper

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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.

The state also provided a county-by-county breakdown of cases and deaths at long-term care facilities:

  • Atlantic County: 8 facilities with 58 total cases and 7 deaths
  • Bergen County: 55 facilities with 2,165 total cases and 415 deaths
  • Burlington County: 17 facilities with 376 total cases and 33 deaths
  • Camden County: 16 facilities with 322 total cases and 51 deaths
  • Cape May County: 4 facilities with 59 total cases and 9 deaths
  • Cumberland County: 2 facilities with 3 total cases and no 0 deaths
  • Essex County: 39 facilities 1,103 total cases and 224 deaths
  • Gloucester County: 7 facilities with 56 total cases and 10 deaths
  • Hudson County: 12 facilities with 396 total cases and 69 deaths
  • Hunterdon County: 4 facilities with 170 total cases and 23 deaths
  • Mercer County: 20 facilities with 431 total cases and 45 deaths
  • Middlesex County: 38 facilities with 936 total cases and 163 deaths
  • Monmouth County: 43 facilities with 879 total cases and 130 deaths
  • Morris County: 36 facilities with 865 total cases and 156 deaths
  • Ocean County: 34 facilities with 622 total cases and 50 deaths
  • Passaic County: 19 facilities with 523 total cases and 91 deaths
  • Salem County: 2 facilities with 20 total cases and 1 death
  • Somerset County: 27 facilities with 597 total cases and 73 deaths
  • Sussex County: 5 facilities with 178 total cases and 48 deaths
  • Union County: 26 facilities with 550 total cases and 105 deaths
  • Warren County: 6 facilities with 191 total cases and 27 deaths

The new numbers came a day after Murphy said the state is making progress, with data showing the curve of deaths and hospitalizations is “flattening.”

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‘I have to keep it strong’: Pa.’s business owners, self-employed fight to weather the coronavirus shutdown

Miles Bryan reports for WHYY

 Listen 4:38

Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz bags up food that was ordered ahead of time for pick up on April 3, 2020, at Mi Casa Su Casa cafe in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Matt Smith for Keystone Crossroads)
Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz bags up food that was ordered ahead of time for pick up on April 3, 2020, at Mi Casa Su Casa cafe in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Matt Smith for Keystone Crossroads)

For Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, appearance still matters.

Cepeda-Freytiz and her husband Felix run Mi Casa Su Casa cafe in Reading, Pennsylvania. Normally bustling with everyone from office workers to high school kids, the cafe has been closed to the public by the coronavirus shutdown. Business is down 80%. Most of the cafe’s staff is furloughed. Now, Johanny and Felix are usually the only ones there to cook an occasional takeout or delivery order.

But in recent days she decided to put up new art on the walls. Felix touched up some paint. And whenever Cepeda-Freytiz, 46, picks up the phone for an order, she’s in a sharp outfit, makeup and a pair of gold hoop earrings.

“It’s a psychological thing, right?” she said. “You want to act like everything is normal, you want to look your brightest…even though that might be a facade.”

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Cepeda-Freytiz is one of the countless small business owners and independent contractors across the Keystone state scrambling to find their footing during the shutdown, which Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has ordered to continue indefinitely to slow the spread of COVID-19. The unprecedented closure has forced owners and contractors to begin tapping deep emotional reserves, and seek out new financial options, to stay afloat.

Cepeda-Freytiz is looking to her past to guide her through this crisis. She left New York City and a job at a nonprofit to open the cafe in 2007 – just months before the Great Recession. The downturn hit Reading particularly hard. By 2011, the city was known as the poorest in America.

“[I had] suicidal thoughts, because I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she said. “When I recovered from that I made a vow that I would never, ever go through that again…This is why I am playing mind games with myself, because I need to stay upbeat, because I refuse to feel that way.”

So even though sales are down, the videos she posts on Facebook are upbeat, imploring her customers and friends to look for new opportunities during the crisis.

She’s working on a plan for a cafe mobile app to increase take-out orders, and is thinking about reconfiguring her kitchen so it can be rented out to caterers — whenever caters reopen.

Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz works in the kitchen on April 3, 2020, at Mi Casa Su Casa cafe in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Matt Smith for Keystone Crossroads)

And Cepeda-Freytiz has another reason to try and stay positive: her constituents.

The cafe owner was appointed to a seat on Reading’s City Council in January 2019. Considered a rising star in the city, she was elected in her own right last November.

People came to her for advice and help before the pandemic. They’re looking to her for guidance even more now.

“I have a huge responsibility,” Cepeda-Freytiz said. “I have to keep it together. I have to keep it strong because that’s the only way I can give people hope.”

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Biofuel industry opposes governors’ RFS request

Reported by Feedstuffs

Five governors — Greg Abbott of Texas, Gary Herbert of Utah, John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Mark Gordon of Wyoming, have asked the Trump Administration to waive U.S. biofuel blending requirements. However, their request received a loud pushback and criticism from the biofuel industry.

The governors cite a spike in the cost of tradable credits refiners use to prove compliance with annual biofuel blending targets, as well as the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged fuel demand and already spurred a closure for at least one oil refinery. The credit costs have more than doubled this year.

Related: Ethanol industry faces perfect tsunami as prices tank

A waiver of Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volumes set more than a year in advance would severely harm the biodiesel industry. Texas and Louisiana are two of the top states in biodiesel and renewable diesel production; an RFS waiver would particularly hurt tens of thousands of workers in the two states, said the National Biodiesel Board.

Renewable Fuels Assn. (RFA) president and chief executive officer Geoff Cooper, in a letter Friday to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, reminded EPA that a waiver may only be granted if petitioners can show that “economic harm” is “severe” in nature and is a direct result of the RFS, not some other factor.

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N.J. coronavirus cases rise to 81,420 with 4,070 deaths confirmed

Coronavirus in New Jersey: Update on April 18, 2020

By Brent Johnson and Len Melisurgo | NJ.com

New Jersey on Saturday reported another 3,026 positive coronavirus tests and 231 new deaths related to COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to at least 81,420 confirmed cases and 4,070 fatalities — though officials said the outlook continues to be more hopeful.

Gov. Phil Murphy said despite the big increase, the rate of both infections and hospitalizations are becoming more stable.

“We are flattening the curve,” Murphy said during his daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton. “We are now reporting more people leaving the hospital than entering. Please, God, let it stay that way. … The progress is undeniable.”

Still, Murphy said he’s not ready to lift lockdown restrictions in the state and called on all New Jerseyans to continue staying home and maintaining social distancing when outside.

“Here’s the problem: The short connection between an abrupt change in human behavior and all those charts, data and progress is shocking,” he said. “If we let our guard down right now, we would literally see it tomorrow.”

“We are not out of the woods,” Murphy added. “We have not yet plateaued.”

And despite the release of daily statistics, it’s difficult to get a complete picture of exactly how many people in New Jersey currently have COVID-19 because the state is testing only residents who are showing symptoms and test results have been backed up for up days. The state also is not reporting significant increases in daily testing, so it is unclear exactly how quickly the virus is spreading.

But Murphy stressed that the state knows “for sure” that the death and hospitalization curves are flattening, and he stressed the state is working to increase testing.

Coronavirus cases as of Saturday, April 18

LOCATIONCASESDEATHS
New Jersey81,4204,070
New York State236,73214,832
New York City127,00013,202
Pennsylvania31,069836
Philadelphia8,563298
United States706,85637,309
Worldwide2,274,800156,140

Note: Data includes positive cases of COVID-19 reported by the CDC, state health officials and other health agencies since Jan. 21. New York State totals include New York City. Pennsylvania totals include Philadelphia. Updated: April 18 at 1:10 p.m. Table: Len Melisurgo | NJ Advance Media  Source: Johns Hopkins Univ., nymag.com, Philadelphia Health Dept., State Health Departments in NJ, NY, PAGet the data Created with Datawrapper

Murphy also got heated over a Facebook post from Atlantic County Surrogate James Curcio, who called on officials to immediately “reopen” New Jersey without restrictions.

“That is irresponsible,” the governor said. “(If) we quote-unquote untie the system right now, there will be blood on our hands,” the governor said near the end of Saturday’s briefing. “And I want to make sure folks understand that. This is literally life and death. And what we need now is responsible leadership. We do not need irresponsible leadership.”

Murphy noted Atlantic County has already had 19 confirmed coronavirus deaths as of this weekend.

New Jersey, which has 9 million residents, continues to be one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots. Only neighboring New York has more cases and deaths among U.S. states.

“It’s a number that takes your breath away,” Murphy said of the total deaths in New Jersey.

As of 10 p.m. Friday, the state had 7,718 coronavirus patients hospitalized, with 2,024 in critical care, 1,641 on ventilators and 90 patients at field medical stations.

Murphy said 814 coronavirus patients were discharged from New Jersey hospitals between 10 p.m. Thursday and 10 p.m. Friday.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Friday she believes North Jersey has already seen the peak of hospitalizations from COVID-19. Still, she noted Central and South Jersey are still awaiting their peaks.

There have now been 9,692 coronavirus patients discharged from New Jersey hospitals, Persichilli said.

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Contamination at CDC lab delayed rollout of coronavirus tests

People work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta last month. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

David Willman reports for The Washington Post
April 18, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. EDT

The failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly produce a test kit for detecting the novel coronavirus was triggered by a glaring scientific breakdown at the CDC’s central laboratory complex in Atlanta, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter and a determination by federal regulators.

The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said.

The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material. The scientists also said the proximity deviated from accepted procedures and jeopardized testing for the virus.

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The Washington Post separately confirmed that Food and Drug Administration officials concluded that the CDC violated its own laboratory standards in making the kits. The substandard practices exposed the kits to contamination.

The troubled segment of the test was not critical to detecting the novel coronavirus, experts said. But after the difficulty emerged, CDC officials took more than a month to remove the unnecessary step from the kits, exacerbating nationwide delays in testing, according to an examination of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 present and former federal scientists and others familiar with the events. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

This account confirms for the first time the contamination’s role in undermining the test and the CDC’s failure to meets its lab standards.

The development and rollout of the original kits are subjects of an investigation led by the Department of Health and Human Services, federal officials said.

The CDC — America’s premier institution for combating the spread of catastrophic disease — declined to make available for interviews those involved in the test design or manufacturing. A spokesman, Benjamin N. Haynes, provided a statement Friday that acknowledged substandard “quality control” in its manufacturing of the test kits.

Those efforts “were not sufficient in this circumstance,” the statement said. The agency also said it has “implemented enhanced quality control to address the issue.”

The CDC said the problems with the test kits might have resulted from “a design and/or manufacturing issue or possible contamination.”

What we know about delays in coronavirus testing

Haynes also defended the CDC’s work, saying that earlier troubles were eventually ironed out.

“As of March 23, more than 90 state and local public health labs in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico verified they are successfully using [the] diagnostic kits,” Haynes said in the statement.

Shortcomings with the tests were first noticed in late January, after the CDC sent an initial batch to 26 public health labs across the country. According to those with knowledge of what unfolded, false-positive reactions emerged at 24 of the 26 labs that first tried out the kits in advance of analyzing samples gathered from patients.

“Only two of them got it right,’’ said a senior federal scientist who reviewed the development of the kits and internal test documentation, and who concluded that the false positives were caused by contamination that occurred at the CDC.

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EPA overhauls mercury pollution rule, despite opposition from industry and activists alike

The John E. Amos coal-fired power plant in Winfield, W. Va., was retrofitted to comply with a rule on mercury enacted under President Barack Obama. (Stacy Kranitz for The Washington Post)

The changes could revamp the math on how the government values human health.

By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post 

The Environmental Protection Agency changed the way the federal government calculates the costs and benefits of dangerous air pollutants, a shift that could restrict the ability of regulators to control toxins in the future.

The move announced Thursday, one in a series of actions taken by the Trump administration that experts say will probably increase air pollution, comes as the nation is fighting a deadly respiratory virus.

In its controversial decision, the EPA declared that it is not “appropriate and necessary” for the government to limit mercury and other harmful pollutants from power plants, even though every utility in America has complied with standards put in place in 2011 under President Barack Obama.

While the agency technically plans to keep existing restrictions on mercury, the changes mean the government would not be able to count collateral benefits — such as reducing soot and smog — when it sets limits on toxic air pollutants.

Some coal executives lobbied for the rollback, calling the Obama-era rule one of the worst examples of what President Trump has labeled the “war on coal.”

But most utilities urged the EPA to leave intact a rule they once opposed. Some share the concerns of environmental advocates, who worry that the change could lead to a legal challenge, prompting some power plants to turn off their pollution controls to save money and ultimately sicken more Americans.

“It’s a disgraceful decision coming on the heels of other poor decisions on air quality at a time we can least afford it,” former EPA administrator Carol M. Browner, now chair of the board of the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.

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Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the move will worsen air quality and harm some of the country’s most vulnerable communities.AD

“This is a truly needless rollback that will only create more uncertainty for our nation’s utilities. It will only lead to worse public health outcomes and, truly, could not come at a worse time,” Carper said in a statement. “Our country is suffering the grave and growing loss of tens of thousands of American lives to a novel coronavirus that attacks our respiratory systems, and this EPA is advancing rules that will cause more respiratory illness.”

EPA declines to tighten soot rules, despite possible links between air pollution and covid-19 impacts

The rule in question, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), targets a powerful neurotoxin that can affect the IQ and motor skills of children, even in utero. Between 2006, when states began to curb mercury from coal plants, and 2016, when the Obama-era rule took full effect, emissions have declined 85 percent.

The Obama administration initially projected that the industry would spend between up to $9.6 billion each year to comply with the regulation, while society as a whole would save between $37 billion and $90 billion from the prevention of thousands of premature deaths and lost work days.

Those estimates included not just lower mercury emissions but corresponding benefits from less soot and other smog-forming pollutants that contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems. Utilities ultimately paid far less to comply, spending about $18 billion between 2012 and 2018, or $3 billion annually.

But the Trump administration has argued that it is inappropriate to count such “co-benefits” when considering the economic impact of regulation, saying Obama used creative math to justify burdensome new requirements.

“We have put in place an honest accounting mechanism,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters Thursday, adding that “99 percent of the benefits” from the mercury rule came from a reduction in soot. “One would not say it is even rational, never mind appropriate, to impose billions in economic cost in return for a few dollars in health benefits.”

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