Essex County Leading New Jersey With ‘Second Surge’ of COVID-19 Cases – Baristanet

New Jersey has been averaging over 1,200 new coronavirus cases daily for the last week – but on Saturday that daily number jumped to just shy of 2000, with 1,994 cases reported.

“We haven’t seen daily case numbers this high since May. We’re still in the midst of a pandemic and need everyone to take this seriously,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Saturday in an urgent update.

Murphy also signed an executive order to extend New Jersey’s public health emergency another 30 days.

The highest number of new cases in New Jersey reported on Saturday — 356 — were in Essex County. And Essex County has been at the top of the COVID-19 dashboard for the last several days. Essex County has also had more COVID-19 deaths than any other county – 1,910 confirmed deaths as of Sunday.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo shared his concerns about climbing cases in the county in this message Saturday on Facebook:

On Sunday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka shared his concern about rising COVID-19 cases.

“Today Newark had more COVID-19 cases than every other city in Essex County combined! We are witnessing a serious spike and tomorrow we will begin taking serious measures. Wear your mask!” Baraka tweeted.

The Township of Montclair has seen an increase in COVID-19 cases reported in October. During the month of September 2020, Montclair reported a total of 35 new cases (20 cases were transferred as “out of jurisdiction”, county and state.). As of Sunday, Montclair has reported 63 new cases in October.

Montclair State University is posting weekly reported cases to its own dashboard; as of October 22, there have been a total of 31 reported cases (28 students and 3 employees). Of these cases, six are in isolation and/or recovering while 25 individuals have recovered and cleared to return to campus.

In West Orange, 13 confirmed cases were reported on Saturday, according to Mayor Robert Parisi; the age breakdown of cases is as follows:

• 15 Year-Old Female
• 34 Year-Old Male
• 37 Year-Old Male
• 38 Year-Old Female
• 38 Year-Old Female
• 38 Year-Old Female
• 40 Year-Old Male
• 41 Year-Old Female
• 41 Year-Old Male
• 52 Year-Old Male
• 60 Year-Old Male
• 68 Year-Old Male
• Unknown Year-Old Female

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