COVID-19 positives in N.J. surpass 1,000 mark for second time in a week

New Jersey recorded 1,009 new COVID-19 positive tests on Saturday for the second time in a week. The state has now received 907,249 positive COVID-19 test results since the pandemic began. The figure does not include antigen tests.

About 20% of the new positive cases in the state are for children and teens under the age of 18. In the 0 to 4 age group, there were 26 new positives on Saturday, and in the 5 to 17 age group, there were 137 new positive test results recorded on Saturday.

The CDC is recommending that people in 10 New Jersey counties wear masks in public indoor settings including the gym, the grocery store, and restaurants. Those counties are: Atlantic, Burlington, Bergen, Essex, Gloucester Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Passaic, and Union. The CDC has recommended that everyone, including the vaccinated, wear masks in high-risk indoor settings.

The rate of tCOVID-19 transmission in New Jersey was 1.46, which is slightly lower than the previous day.

Nine more people in the state have died as a result of complications due to COVID-19, and another three deaths in the past 24 hours are suspected to be related to the virus, but this still needs to be confirmed via testing. Since the pandemic began, a total of 23,883 deaths in the state have been confirmed to be related to complications due to COVID-19.

The COVID test positivity rates in North, Central, and South New Jersey are 3.05%, 3.6%, and 3.5% respectively.

On Friday, 22,000 first vaccine doses and 16,000 second doses were administered across the state. As of Saturday morning, 10.84 million vaccine doses have been administered in New Jersey. About 5.29 million doses are second doses, with 395,000 of those doses being single-dose J&J vaccines. A total of 323,000 young people ages 12 to 15 and 239,000 people ages 16 and 17 have been vaccinated to date in New Jersey.

A total of 425 patients were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s hospitals on Friday night, which is lower than the previous day’s 485 patients. Eighty-two patients were in critical or intensive care, with 30 patients on ventilators. A total of 69 COVID-19 patients were discharged, while 10 new patients were admitted to hospitals.

At long-term care facilities in the state, seven new COVID-19 cases were recorded for residents on Saturday, and nine staff members at long-term care facilities tested positive for COVID-19. One more resident of a long-term care facility died, bringing the official total of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities to 7,879.

Middlesex County – 95 new positives

Mercer County – 28 new positives

Monmouth County – 141 new positives

Hunterdon County – 19 new positives

Somerset County – 32 new positives

In the United States, 35.68 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 to date, an increase of 97,000 people since Friday. Total confirmed COVID-19 related deaths in the United State are 629,000 to date, an increase of 528 people since Friday.