Another 71 deaths but a dip in hospitalizations, as N.J. reports 6,247 new COVID-19 cases – NJ.com

New Jersey reported another 6,247 new coronavirus cases Saturday and 71 additional deaths, as neighboring states New York and Pennsylvania ordered new restrictions that included closing indoor dining due to a surge in cases.

The seven-day average for positive tests is 5,077, up 11% from a week ago and 78% from a month ago. The seven-day average has been hovering around 5,000 for the past week — the highest it has been during the nine-month outbreak — though tests during the initial wave of cases were scare and likely undercounted the extent of the infections.

Even more worrisome, the death toll for the first 12 days of December increased to 664 confirmed fatalities — already higher than the entire month of November (615) and the combined totals for October (231), September (178) and August (238).

Hospitalizations dipped slightly, with 3,543 coronavirus patients as of Friday night, but still more than double the hospitalizations at the beginning of November.

The state’s rate of transmission increased Saturday to 1.15, up from 1.14 a day earlier. Any number over 1 indicates the outbreak is expanding. The rate of transmission has increased for six consecutive days, an indication that the increase in infections is accelerating.

The positivity rate for Tuesday, the most recent day available, was 10.8% based on 44,609 tests results. The rate has been above 10% for all but one day since Nov. 25. It was 9.92% on Monday.

Those numbers come as the state expects its initial shipment of the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine to arrive within the next few days, following its approval late Friday by federal regulators.

“We are ready to immediately begin distribution to our frontline health care workers,” Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted late Friday, shortly after the Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency rollout of the long-awaited and promising vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and its German partner, BioNTech.

Certain hospitals in New Jersey should expect to start receiving the vaccine as soon as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, state officials announced.

The death toll from outbreak reached 17,732 including 15,864 confirmed and 1,868 “probable” fatalities. New Jersey has had 396,496 total cases out of 6.5 million tests administered, though those totals do not include recently-deployed rapid tests.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

As cases and hospitalizations have been on the rise, Murphy continues to say he’s keeping all options open for new restrictions to slow the outbreak.

But he reaffirmed on Friday that New Jersey is “staying with what we got” on indoor dining with 25% capacity limits and a requirement for indoor service to end between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Murphy also gave counties and municipalities the ability to order bars and restaurants to close as early as 8 p.m. daily.

Murphy has said he’s watching hospital capacity closely when deciding whether to impose more orders to try and stop the spread. The governor said a month ago he was looking at three potential restrictions in particular indoor dining, elective surgeries at hospital and indoor sports

The governor has since ordered the suspension of all indoor organized sports at the youth, high school, and adult recreational levels. That started on Dec. 5 and lasts until at least Jan. 2. He’s since said he hopes they’ll be able to resume next month, but has left the door open to extending the temporary ban on them.

Murphy on Wednesday revealed two pairs of moderate-case and worst-case scenarios for the second wave. The moderate forecasts call for New Jersey to hit between 6,300 and 9,100 daily cases and between 5,700 and 7,100 patients hospitalized over the next two months.

COUNTY-BY-COUNTY NUMBERS (sorted by most new)

  • Middlesex County: 36,246 positive tests (567 new), 1,337 confirmed deaths (207 probable)
  • Bergen County: 40,115 positive tests (542 new), 1,942 confirmed deaths (254 probable)
  • Camden County: 23,486 positive tests (520 new), 675 confirmed deaths (58 probable)
  • Ocean County: 25,927 positive tests (512 new), 1,139 confirmed deaths (70 probable)
  • Hudson County: 36,850 positive tests (495 new), 1,470 confirmed deaths (159 probable)
  • Passaic County: 34,930 positive tests (489 new), 1,228 confirmed deaths (144 probable)
  • Essex County: 40,650 positive tests (480 new), 2,060 confirmed deaths (234 probable)
  • Monmouth County: 25,001 positive tests (443 new), 844 confirmed deaths (94 probable)
  • Burlington County: 16,736 positive tests (312 new), 521 confirmed deaths (45 probable)
  • Morris County: 16,486 positive tests (312 new), 739 confirmed deaths (157 probable)
  • Union County: 32,101 positive tests (291 new), 1,304 confirmed deaths (171 probable)
  • Gloucester County: 11,375 positive tests (236 new), 315 confirmed deaths (8 probable)
  • Mercer County: 15,985 positive tests (227 new), 648 confirmed deaths (37 probable)
  • Atlantic County: 9,542 positive tests (175 new), 300 confirmed deaths (16 probable)
  • Somerset County: 10,571 positive tests (148 new), 546 confirmed deaths (82 probable)
  • Cumberland County: 6,131 positive tests (101 new), 184 confirmed deaths (8 probable)
  • Hunterdon County: 3,015 positive tests (79 new), 79 confirmed deaths (54 probable)
  • Sussex County: 3,294 positive tests (72 new), 163 confirmed deaths (39 probable)
  • Salem County: 2,131 positive tests (67 new), 97 confirmed deaths (5 probable)
  • Warren County: 3,041 positive tests (52 new), 163 confirmed deaths (13 probable)
  • Cape May County: 1,948 positive tests (38 new), 110 confirmed deaths (13 probable)

HOSPITALIZATIONS

The number of people hospitalized as of Friday night dropped from Thursday night, when it was the highest level since May 14 — when 3,706 people were being treated.

There were 3,543 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Friday (28 fewer than the previous day).

Of those hospitalized Friday, 690 were in critical or intensive care (3 more than the previous night), including 438 on ventilators (17 more).

There were 397 coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals Friday, according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard.

SCHOOL CASES

New Jersey officials have reported 18 new in-school outbreaks and 103 new positive cases among students, teachers and school staff in one of the worst weeks since the state started tracking how many people were being infected with COVID-19 at school.

The names of the schools were not released to protect the privacy of the children and school staff members who tested positive, state officials said.

Although hundreds of school districts have announced coronavirus cases and dozens of New Jersey schools have temporarily switched to all remote classes since the start of the school year, state health officials have said 88 schools have had confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks.

There have now been 388 total cases of in-school transmission in those 88 schools since the start of the school year.

Those numbers do not include students or staff believed to have been infected outside school, or cases that can’t be confirmed as in-school outbreaks.

Though the numbers keep rising every week, Murphy has said the school outbreak statistics remain below what state officials were expecting when schools reopened for in-person classes. The extensive rules for schools, which include social distancing guidelines for classrooms and strict mask requirements, have made schools among the safest places in the state, he said.

But for the second week in a row, every region in New Jersey is orange on the state’s COVID-19 map, indicating “high” virus activity across the state.

The color coding on the map is being closely watched by many school districts because if any area moves to red, indicating “very high” coronavirus activity, all schools in that region will be required to close classrooms and switch to all-remote learning, according to state health guidelines.

AGE BREAKDOWN

Broken down by age, those 30 to 49 years old make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have caught the virus (31.6%), followed by those 50-64 (24.1%), 18-29 (19%), 65-79 (11.3%), 80 and older (6.1%), 5-17 (6.4%), and 0-4 (1.3%).

On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with pre-existing conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (47.73%), followed by those 65-79 (31.68%), 50-64 (15.89%), 30-49 (4.31%), 18-29 (0.37%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0.02%).

At least 7,373 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That number has been rising again at a steeper rate in recent weeks.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of Friday, there have been 71.2 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.59 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.

The U.S. has reported the most cases with 15.85 million and the most deaths at more than 295,500.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.