NJ releases school COVID-19 data by county. Here’s what we know – NorthJersey.com
The state Department of Health released new data on COVID-19 cases and trends in the state’s public schools and colleges on Monday.
Sussex County schools had the most students learning remotely, Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said during Gov. Phil Murphy’s weekly briefing. Statewide, 3.5% of students were excluded from learning in school due to COVID-19-related reasons, she said.
Sussex County also has the highest COVID case rate in K-12 schools, at 4.04%, followed by Gloucester and Monmouth counties.
Essex County had the fewest cases, with a case rate of 1.0.
Case rates, the number of cases per 1,000, have been rising in schools and in higher education settings, and in both situations, staff have had higher rates than students, according to the trends, Persichilli said.
On the other hand, Bergen and Somerset counties have the highest staff vaccination rates for K-12 districts.
The state’s COVID website dashboard shows that nearly 86% of staff at K-12 schools and colleges statewide are vaccinated. It also shows 82% of college students to be vaccinated, but does not have information on how many students in grades K-12 have received the vaccine. Persichilli did not say why those numbers are not included.
The state data provides information about the numbers of positive cases per 1,000 individuals and breaks down the number of cases by student and by staff, providing new numbers weekly by county. It also provides cumulative case rates and trends over time, also broken down by county.
There were also 19 COVID-19 school outbreaks reported statewide last week, Persichilli said. An outbreak occurs when there are three or more COVID-positive cases among students or staff at a school that occurred among close contacts in the school setting over a 14-day period.
“Reporting is not 100%,” Persichilli said, but it provides a weekly snapshot of current virus activity based on reporting by parents and staff and COVID testing reports submitted by 2,081 of the state’s nearly 2,490 schools and 45 higher education institutions.
At 4.04 new COVID cases per 1,000, Sussex County is nearly 2 points ahead of most other New Jersey’s counties.
This new information, Persichilli said, will help track case rates over time and monitor the numbers of remote learners and students on all levels that are in quarantine.
The new data was released days before the Thanksgiving break. State epidemiologist Christina Tan and Persichilli expressed concern that the spike in cases in November will continue through the December holidays, as it did last year. However, Murphy said three times more people were hospitalized with COVID at this time last year, before vaccinations became available.
In colleges and K-12 schools, COVID rates dropped at the beginning of the fall semester but have climbed in November, about two months before Murphy’s K-12 school mask executive order mandate expires on Jan 11, 2022.
Murphy refused to reveal a specific plan, or say if he has one, to lift the mask mandate, during Monday’s briefing.
“We’re not there yet on lifting the mask mandate,” he said in response to questions about establishing a target metric or number of cases or vaccinations to lift the school mask mandate before the executive order on masks in schools expires.
He did say the “higher penetration rate” of vaccines among the 12-to-17 age group was a guideline in decisions about lifting the mandate. Teenagers have been eligible for vaccinations since May and have been the focus of state efforts to immunize school-going students. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended pediatric COVID-19 vaccines for children 5 and above in early November.
In the state, 59% of children 12 to 17 had received at least one dose of the vaccine in late September. Nine thousand children between the ages of 5 and 11 were vaccinated as of Nov. 8, about 1.2% of that demographic. Persichilli said 260,000 of 650,000 12- to 17-year-olds still need vaccinations.
NJ school vaccines:Return to in-person school has some parents of unvaccinated young children on edge
Murphy was asked if he would follow school mask rules recently adopted by Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
In Massachusetts, the decision to require students to wear masks will be left up to the local districts if 80% of the students there are vaccinated. In Pennsylvania, the governor will return masking decisions to local control in January.
Murphy said returning the mandate to local control is an option, but it depends on a variety of factors, including general vaccination numbers among the population, boosters and the number of children being vaccinated. He reiterated that he did not have any target numbers that would require revisiting the executive order.
The state has maintained a public COVID-19 dashboard with updates on in-school virus outbreaks since the return of in-person learning in September. That dashboard has now been updated with COVID numbers for colleges and universities.
The number of students isolated due to COVID-19 at the 45 colleges and universities is 137; the number of college students quarantining is 154. One cluster of COVID-19 cases was reported on one campus last week. (A cluster is two or more students who are exposed to the virus at a school-related activity.)
Since the onset of the pandemic,18,747 students in K-12 grades and 4,095 staff tested positive for COVID. In the state’s higher education institutions, 1,921 students and 483 staff tested positive during the same time, according to the state dashboard.
Mary Ann Koruth covers education for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news about New Jersey’s schools and how it affects your children, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: koruthm@northjersey.com
Twitter: @MaryAnnKoruth