New Jersey’s death toll from the coronavirus increased to 11,770 on Tuesday with at least 161,545 total cases since the state’s outbreak started March 4, but officials said the downward trend across all key measurements continues as more businesses prepare to reopen.
Officials reported 51 new deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 708 new positive tests among the 9 million residents in New Jersey, home to the second-largest outbreak in the country.
“We continue to trend overwhelmingly in the right direction,” Gov. Phil Murphy said during his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton, adding that officials “feel confident” they can start Stage 2 of the state’s gradual reopening plan June 15.
Meanwhile, the state is now reporting 5,004 lab-confirmed deaths at longterm care facilities — including nursing and veterans homes. That accounts for about 43% of New Jersey’s total coronavirus-related fatalities.
The state’s total number of new deaths is 24 more than those announced Monday, while the number of new cases is 109 more than those announced Monday.
But Monday numbers are often incomplete because of a lag in lab results over the weekend. And the state’s overall metrics are down significantly from their peaks. New Jersey hit a one-day high in deaths — 460 — on April 30 and a one-day high in new cases — 4,391 — on April 16.
“We cannot get lost in the noise of one day’s report, but rather, we need to look at things over time to find the trends,” Murphy said.
Officials on Tuesday also released new data that shows the virus’ rate of reproduction in New Jersey has fallen steadily over the last few months, so much so that each new infection has led to fewer than one new case for weeks now. Each infected person led to more than five new cases 10 weeks ago, when Murphy’s stay-at-home orders started.
“Without these measures in place, it is certain that our health care system would have been overwhelmed,” Murphy said. “A five-times reproduction rate would be simply unsustainable for public health.”
The announcement came after a group of anonymous state Department of Health employees sent a letter to lawmakers Monday charging that New Jersey’s handling of the virus inside nursing homes was “an unmitigated failure” that led to “preventable deaths" and questioning whether Murphy’s administration is "making things up as they proceed” in order to reopen the economy.
Murphy declined to comment on the letter Tuesday, saying: “We don’t spend any time in replying to anonymous anythings."
“We spend, all of us, every single minute of every day trying to save as many lives as we can,” the governor added.
HOSPITAL TRENDS
The state’s peak in hospitalizations happened on April 14, with more than 8,000 coronavirus patients across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals. There were 2,372 patients reported as of 10 p.m. Monday, though data was missing for one hospital.
Of those, 639 patients were in critical or intensive care, while 459 were on ventilators.
There were 151 new hospitalizations Monday and 102 coronavirus patients discharged.
LONGTERM CARE NUMBERS
There have now been 33,318 coronavirus cases across 545 of the state’s longterm care facilities, such as nursing and veterans homes, according to the state’s tracking website. That includes 22,423 residents and 10,895 staff members.
That’s an increase of 200 cases from Monday.
The total includes 5,004 lab-confirmed deaths attributed to the virus at those facilities. That’s an increase of 52 deaths from Monday.
The deaths at longterm care facilities increase to 6,072 when fatalities suspected to be linked to COVID-19 are included. Of those, 5,965 were residents and 107 were staff members.
COUNTY-BY-COUNTY NUMBERS
The county-by-county list of cases and deaths include:
- Hudson County: 18,455 with 1,188 deaths
- Bergen County: 18,333 with 1,584 deaths
- Essex County: 17,752 with 1,672 deaths
- Passaic County: 16,234 with 931 deaths
- Middlesex County: 16,021 with 997 deaths
- Union County: 15,868 with 1,078 deaths
- Ocean County: 8,817 with 743 deaths
- Monmouth County: 8,289 with 608 deaths
- Mercer County: 7,004 with 477 deaths
- Camden County: 6,603 with 339 deaths
- Morris County: 6,512 with 617 deaths
- Burlington County: 4,680 with 297 deaths
- Somerset County: 4,605 with 419 deaths
- Cumberland County: 2,345 with 78 deaths
- Gloucester County: 2,262 with 148 deaths
- Atlantic County: 2,251 with 162 deaths
- Warren County: 1,173 with 132 deaths
- Sussex County: 1,123 with 148 deaths
- Hunterdon County: 999 with 60 deaths
- Salem County: 645 with 42 deaths
- Cape May County: 628 with 50 deaths
Another 946 cases are under investigation to determine where the person resides.
New Jersey has seen 817,677 COVID-19 tests administered since the start of the outbreak.
The total number of coronavirus cases in New Jersey is cumulative and does not reflect the likely thousands of residents who have recovered. There may also be infected residents who have yet to be tested.
Dr. Edward Lifshitz, medical director of the state Department of Health’s communicable disease service, said Monday he can’t give “an exact number” of how many active COVID-19 cases there currently are in the state because that’s difficult to tabulate.
“It is much lower than it has been, but it certainly isn’t zero,” Lifshitz said.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
Murphy announced Monday the state will enter “Stage 2” of its multi-phase reopening plan on June 15, beginning with allowing outdoor dining and permitting nonessential retail stores to welcome customers inside at reduced capacity. Hair salons and barbershops will follow June 22.
The governor said this is safe not only because the number of new cases and deaths are dropping, but because the state has ramped up testing and is expanding contact tracers that will allow officials to more easily handle any coronavirus spikes.
Murphy has already allowed parks, beaches, boardwalks, and lakes in New Jersey to reopen. He increased the limit on outdoor gatherings to 25. Indoor gatherings remain capped at 10.
The governor announced last week that child daycare centers in New Jersey can reopen June 15, outdoor, non-contact organized sports can resume June 22, and youth day camps can operate beginning July 6, all with restrictions. The governor also said live horse racing can return, without fans, as early as this weekend. And he said the state is hoping to allow larger indoor gatherings, including those at churches and other houses of worship, by the weekend of June 12.
More than 1.1 million New Jersey residents have filed for unemployment since aggressive social distancing started in mid-March, causing the state’s unemployment rate to surge to 15.3%, though the number of new claims has fallen in recent weeks. Many say they’ve been waiting for weeks to get paid and have struggled with the state’s busy phone and online systems.
Murphy’s administration has said it plans to cut $1.3 billion in state spending thanks to plummeting tax revenue. The governor has warned of up to 200,000 public-worker layoffs if the federal government doesn’t provide more direct aid to states.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 6.3 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 across the globe, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Of those, more than 367,000 have died and more than 2.7 million have recovered.
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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.