How many coronavirus cases are in your NJ town? It can be difficult to tell

Woodbridge residents can get a daily phone call from their mayor updating them on coronavirus news.

Mayor John McCormac utilizes the township's "code red" system, normally used for snow emergencies or changes in garbage collection schedules, to send recorded updates to about 18,000 people every day. Think of them as fireside chats to inform and reassure the people of Woodbridge, which has 194 coronavirus cases among its 102,000 residents.

“There continues to be no concentration of cases in any particular area of town,” McCormac said in one call last week. “We can take some solace in the fact that we still trail the state averages.”

Officials in Hightstown have taken a different track. The Mercer County borough does not tell residents whether there are any virus cases within its borders. Same in nearby Pennington. Jersey City didn't add updates to its website until the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey asked about it.

Across New Jersey's 565 municipalities and 21 counties there are different protocols for keeping the public up to date on the crisis. For residents, the disparity means it can be hard to find out how many cases are in your town, or a relative's town, because there is no uniform approach.

"I’d like to know what’s at my front door, in the local community," said Becky Fish, a Keyport resident who was upset when Monmouth County temporarily stopped reporting town-level case counts. "I think the number one thing you can do right now is stay informed about what’s going on. It’s important to know what’s in your local community."

Many counties take on the role of information providers. At least 17 of 21 counties provide regular updates online or on social media, or both, and include a breakdown of cases by town. Some report only new cases announced each day, not aggregate totals over time. 

A few, like Union County, leave public reporting up to the 21 municipalities within their borders. Union County has the fourth-highest number of positive cases in the state.

“It’s not as easy as you would think, getting those numbers for us," said Sebastian D’Elia, a spokesman for Union County. D'Elia said the rapidly changing number of cases could lead to inaccurate reports.

"The municipalities are better equipped to handle their own messages of what they have,” he said, later adding residents know coronavirus is "everywhere."

Story continues below chart

The other counties that provide no town-by-town breakdown are Atlantic, Hudson and Mercer. Atlantic has few cases, 72 of the state's 29,895 total as of Friday. In Hudson, which has the third-highest count in the state, 11 of 12 towns update their websites with the number of cases within their borders. Hoboken sends out a daily email to residents.

In Mercer, residents in some of the county's 12 municipalities don't get any details on where the county's 484 positive cases are. Trenton and Princeton use their websites to offer daily updates, but residents of Ewing, Hightstown, Pennington and others don't know whether any of their neighbors have tested positive. Asked why, town officials said Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes told them not to.

In a March 27 letter to Mercer mayors, Hughes said he wanted the towns to provide countywide data only.

"Public health emergencies, such as the coronavirus outbreak, are stressful times. Fear and anxiety can lead to social stigma toward our citizens or places within our communities, and discrimination and ostracism can occur when people associate COVID-19 with a particular group or individual," the letter reads. "An unfortunate reality is that as test availability increases so will the number of positive cases, to a point that a breakdown by municipality will no longer be relevant."

Hughes spokeswoman Julie Willmont said the letter was a "recommendation only."

See the list:NJ coronavirus cases listed by town for Bergen and Passaic counties

Survival story:'I’m not dead and each day is slightly better:' The story of a senior coronavirus survivor

Monmouth County reported town-level counts, but then abruptly stopped on March 24, prompting concern among residents. A week later the detailed numbers were back in daily reports after the county freeholder director said they moved to "reassign and train additional staff" to make the numbers available.

The numbers of cases are not always so simple to report, especially in counties like Monmouth, where there are 53 municipalities. Doctors, health departments and the state compile case information into a state database, but it can include errors and corrections are sometimes necessary. And with the unprecedented surge of coronavirus cases, the system was hard to access for a time, slowed by the sheer number of people trying to enter information.

“At a certain point over the last couple of weeks, everybody was in that database," said public health officer Dave Henry, who leads the Monmouth County Regional Health Commission — an independent agency that tracks cases in the Jersey Shore county. "I don’t think they had sufficient bandwidth.” 

By Friday, however, the system was back up to speed. Henry, who said he had gotten up at 3 a.m. or 5 a.m. to enter case information and avoid delays, said he was able to enter information at about 11 a.m. Friday, during normal business hours.

Stacey Barchenger is a reporter in the New Jersey Statehouse. For unlimited access to her work covering New Jersey’s lawmakers and political power structure, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: sbarchenger@gannettnj.com Twitter: @sbarchenger