New Jersey health officials on Friday reported another 488 COVID-19 cases and three new confirmed deaths.
The statewide rate of transmission is 0.85. A transmission rate of 1 means the number of cases have leveled off, while anything below 1 means the outbreak is declining.
The state’s seven-day average for confirmed positive tests is 442 — down 15% from a week ago and down 58% from a month ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers six counties in the state to have “medium” community levels of the coronavirus: Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester and Salem. The remaining 15 counties have “low” community levels of COVID-19.
Case counts and hospitalization numbers by region determine each county’s community level, according to the CDC.
There were 686 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases reported across 68 of the state’s 70 hospitals Thursday night. Of those hospitalized, 110 are in intensive care and 21 are on ventilators.
The statewide positivity rate for tests conducted Saturday, the most recent day for which data is available, was 4.34%.
TOTAL NUMBERS
New Jersey has reported more than 2.5 million total confirmed COVID-19 cases since it announced its first known case of the virus on March 4, 2020.
The Garden State has also recorded 500,496 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases. There are also numerous cases that were likely never counted, including at-home positive tests that are not included in the state’s numbers.
The state of 9.2 million residents has reported 36,040 COVID-19 deaths — 32,924 confirmed fatalities and 3,116 probable ones.
New Jersey had the 10th-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S. as of Feb. 27.
VACCINATION NUMBERS
More than 7.1 million people who work, live or study in New Jersey have reached fully vaccinated status. More than 8 million people have received a first dose since vaccinations began in the state on Dec. 15, 2020.
More than 4.3 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one.
LONG-TERM CARE NUMBERS
At least 10,142 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 the most recent state data.
Of the active outbreaks at 278 facilities, there are 9,532 current cases among residents and 5,934 cases among staff, according to the latest data.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine announced this week that their Coronavirus Resource Center, which reported global COVID-19 data since March 2020, has been discontinued. The center stopped reporting data on March 10.
As of that date, there were more than 676 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to the center’s database.
More than 6.8 million people have died because of the virus, the data shows.
The U.S. had reported the most cumulative cases (more than 103 million) and deaths (at least 1.1 million) of any nation.
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Camille Furst may be reached at cfurst@njadvancemedia.com.