4 N.J. children with COVID have died since Christmas, officials say – NJ.com

Four children under the age of 5 in New Jersey — three of them infants — have died from issues associated with COVID-19 in the four weeks since Christmas, the state announced Monday.

That accounts for one-fourth of the state’s 12 total coronavirus-related deaths among children.

The state previously reported two of those four deaths — one child under age 10 in North Jersey and an infant in South Jersey. On Monday, the state reported the deaths of two more children, both under 10 months of age, who tested positive for COVID-19.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said there were no reports of “significant underlying conditions” in any of the children. Officials did not provide other details about the deaths.

This comes as New Jersey has seen spikes in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in recent weeks thanks to the highly transmissible omicron variant — a wave that has only lately started to wane. Officials say cases have been rising among children. Kids four and under are still not eligible to be vaccinated in the U.S.

“We must remain vigilant, because as it relates to this pandemic, the virus continues to test our health care system and can cause severe consequences among children,” state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during the state’s latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “(It’s) a reminder that COVID-19 isn’t always a benign illness in children.”

In all, there have been 12 coronavirus-related deaths among children in the state since the pandemic started here in March 2020, officials said. Eight were of kids age 4 and under, and four were between the ages of 5 and 17.

That’s out of more than 30,000 COVID-19 deaths that New Jersey has reported in nearly 23 months.

Persichilli said it’s “difficult to know for sure if COVID-19 directly directly contributed to these deaths” but called on parents to take precautions with children.

“We have to protect them as much as possible,” the health commissioner said. “They should not be around unvaccinated, unboosted individuals. They shouldn’t be in very crowded, particularly indoor, spaces. They should not be in crowds where you don’t know who’s vaccinated and who is not. They need to be protected.”

“The fact we have had significant deaths in the 0-4 year olds is beyond me — beyond imagination at this point,” Persichilli added.

Officials dismissed a question if the state announced these fatalities as a “scare tactic” for parents to get their kids vaccinated because pediatric deaths represent a very small portion of New Jersey’s overall coronavirus fatalities.

Ed Lifshitz, director of the state health department’s communicable disease service, said he’s not an “alarmist.” But he added two to three children die in New Jersey in a typical flu season.

“In the last two weeks, to have that large number of children die, that’s much worse than we’ve ever seen in a flu season since we’ve been keeping record,” Lifshitz said. “It is important, and it is particularly important, as the governor said, because these young children unfortunately can’t be vaccinated. It really is important that those people around them who can be vaccinated get vaccinated.”

“Yes, the great silver lining of this pandemic has always been that the kids have done generally well, but it’s that generally part,” he added. “It’s not always well, and we still do need to protect them.”

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New Jersey continues to see signs of the recent omicron surge — the state’s fifth wave of the pandemic — is receding. The Garden State on Monday reported another 24 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 4,338 confirmed positive tests, the fewest single-day case total since Dec. 15.

There were 4,093 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases at 70 of New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Sunday night. One hospital did not report data, but that’s down around 33% from the recent peak of 6,089 patients on Jan. 11.

In addition, the statewide transmission and positivity rates also keep falling.

Still, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday that while officials “believe we are on the tail-end of omicron, we are not yet free of it.”

Murphy also urged more residents to get vaccinated and boosted, and called the decision not to get vaccinated “selfish.”

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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @johnsb01.