Jersey City reached a grim milestone Friday evening as it became the first New Jersey municipality to report at least 1,000 positive coronavirus tests.
As of 7 p.m., the city had 1,104 positive cases and 33 deaths, according to a tweet from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.
“Jersey City has been ahead of every policy nationally, and the more positive cases just speaks to the fact that we are testing more people than any other city in New Jersey," Fulop told NJ Advance Media. "We felt at the beginning that more testing for our residents would give us an advantage in fighting the virus.”
Three hundred and fifty tests were administered in Jersey City today which is more than many counties, authorities said. The city also has two testing sites.
The number of cases in the city has been steadily growing since the coronavirus outbreak began in early March and the number of positive tests jumped by about 200 from Thursday, data showed.
Hudson County has the third most positive cases of coronavirus in the state with 2,835, behind Bergen County which has 4,866 and Essex County with 3,067, according to numbers provided by Gov. Phil Murphy during his daily press briefing.
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Newark was the municipality with the second most positive cases as of Friday evening with 946, according to the latest numbers provided by Essex County.
Statewide, as of Friday, there were at least 29,895 cases of the coronavirus and 646 deaths.
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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.