New Jersey on Friday reported nine confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 1,237 positive tests as the CDC suggests adults 50 and older receive another booster shot. A second booster can only help, experts say, as BA.2, or the “stealth omicron” subvariant, continues to spread. It is now the dominant strain in the U.S., the CDC announced this week.
The state’s seven-day average for confirmed cases was 899 on Friday, up 14% from a week ago, but still down 9% from a month ago.
There were 336 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across 70 of the state’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night. Hospitalizations hit a recent peak at 6,089 on Jan. 10 during the omicron wave.
There were at least 72 people discharged in that same 24-hour period, according to state data. Of those hospitalized, 57 were in intensive care and 29 were on ventilators.
The transmission rate was 1.03 on Friday. When the transmission rate is 1, that means positive test have leveled off at current numbers. Any number over 1 indicates that each new case is leading to at least 1 other new case.
The statewide daily positivity rate for tests conducted Saturday, the most recent day available, was 5.69%.
The state on Friday also reported 378 probable cases from rapid antigen testing at medical sites.
All of New Jersey’s 21 counties were listed as having “low” rates of transmission, according to recently updated guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Healthy people in the low and medium categories are no longer recommended to wear masks.
BA.2, the new strain of COVID-19, has been spreading in New Jersey for weeks, though at much lower rates than the omicron surge in December and January. Officials have said the omicron “stealth” subvariant appears to spread more easily, but generally not cause more severe illness.
For the week ending March 12, BA.2 accounted for 40.5% of the positive tests sampled (up from 30.3% the previous week), while the omicron variant accounted for nearly 58.3% of positive tests sampled.
New Jersey has reported 1,899,943 total confirmed cases out of more than 17.4 million PCR tests conducted in the more than two years since the state reported its first known case March 4, 2020.
The Garden State has also recorded 301,381 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases. And there are numerous cases that have likely never been counted, including at-home positive tests that are not included in the state’s numbers.
The state of 9.2 million residents has reported 33,238 COVID-19 deaths in that time — 30,245 confirmed fatalities and 2,993 probable.
VACCINATION NUMBERS
More than 6.8 million of the 8.46 million eligible people who live, work or study in New Jersey have received the initial course of vaccinations and more than 7.7 million have received a first dose since vaccinations began here on Dec. 15, 2020.
While the number of N.J. residents fully vaccinated has reached over 6.8 million, the latest numbers also follow a major study that reveals even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain.
More than 3.2 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one.
SCHOOL AND LONGTERM CARE NUMBERS
For the week ending March 20, with around 61% of schools reporting data, another 1,568 COVID-19 cases were reported among staff (326) and students (1,242) across New Jersey’s schools.
Since the start of the academic year, there have been 102,569 students and 28,416 school staff members who have contracted COVID-19 in New Jersey, though the state has never had more than two-thirds of the school districts reporting data in any week.
The state provides total student and staff cases separately from those deemed to be in-school transmission, which is narrowly defined as three or more cases linked through contact tracing.
New Jersey has reported 536 total in-school outbreaks, including 3,696 cases among students and staff. That includes 12 new outbreaks from data reported last week.
At least 9,399 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Friday, there have been over 488 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 6.1 million people having died due to the virus.
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