New Jersey health officials on Saturday reported another 1,947 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 10 new confirmed deaths as new cases begin to level off in the Garden State.
Only seven counties remain in the high-risk category for transmission as reported by the CDC on Saturday. The counties are Cape May, Atlantic, Camden, Burlington, Monmouth, Essex and Middlesex.
The remaining counties are deemed “medium” risk, besides Hudson County, which is deemed “low” risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The seven-day average for confirmed positive tests fell to 1,839 on Saturday, a 17% decrease from a week ago and a 34% decrease from a month ago.
New Jersey’s rate of transmission was 0.89 Saturday. The rate was 1.01 at the beginning of the month.
A transmission rate below 1 is an indication that each new case is leading to less than one additional case. When the transmission rate is 1, that means cases have leveled off at the current numbers. Anything above 1 means the outbreak is expanding.
There were 983 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases reported across the state’s 71 hospitals as of Saturday. Of those hospitalized, 110 are in intensive care and 41 are on ventilators.
The statewide positivity rate for tests conducted Monday — the most recent day with available data — was 10.90%.
The CDC considers positivity rates above 10% to be “high.” However, the positivity rate is substantially lower than its peak of 40.83% on Jan. 1 during the height of the omicron variant.
TOTAL NUMBERS
New Jersey has reported 2.25 million total confirmed COVID-19 cases since the state reported its first known case March 4, 2020.
The Garden State has also recorded 394,731 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 34,456 COVID-19 deaths — 31,357 confirmed fatalities and 3,099 probable ones.
New Jersey has the ninth-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S. — behind Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, New Mexico and Arkansas — as of Tuesday. Last summer, the state had the most deaths per capita in the nation.
VACCINATION NUMBERS
More than 7 million people who work, live or study in the Garden State have reached a fully vaccinated status.
More than 7.89 million have received a first dose since vaccinations began in the state on Dec. 15, 2020.
More than 4.2 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one.
Regulators have paused plans to authorize a second booster shot for adults under 50 this summer. Instead, they hope to revamp vaccines to target emerging subvariants by the fall.
LONG-TERM CARE NUMBERS
At least 9,509 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 on Saturday.
Of the active outbreaks at 393 facilities, there are 6,082 current cases among residents and 6,255 cases among staff, as of the latest data.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Saturday, there have been more than 595 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus database.
More than 6.4 million people have died because of the virus, the data shows.
The U.S. has reported the most cumulative COVID-19 cases (more than 93.6 million) and deaths (at least 1.04 million) of any nation.
There have been more than 12 billion vaccine doses administered globally.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DeionRJohhnson.
