For the first time in three months, New Jersey reported a total of more than 3,000 COVID cases on Thursday, with hospitalizations and transmissions trending upwards. That’s not something any of us want to hear.
The New Jersey Department of Health reported 3,479 new cases yesterday. The state last totaled 3,000 daily infections on February 3 — toward the end of the case-record-breaking omicron wave. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 48 people in the Garden State have died from COVID in the past week.
COVID hospitalizations remain low in New Jersey compared with previous points during the pandemic, but they continue to increase. As of Wednesday, the state had 604 patients with either confirmed or suspected COVID cases who were hospitalized. Thats compared to 339 COVID patients in New Jersey hospitals at the end of March, nearly twice as many.
Clearly, we all need to remain committed to being smart when engaging in public settings.
New Jersey had a transmission rate of 1.2 as of yesterday afternoon. A transmission rate higher than one means that every new case leads to another new case.
It should be mentioned that reported COVID case totals provided by health officials don’t include results from at-home test kits. Those figures are not reported to authorities.
Clearly, this is not over.
