New Jersey officials on Thanksgiving reported 4,565 more coronavirus cases and 39 additional deaths, while hospitalizations decreased after 26 days of increases.
Gov. Phil Murphy has warned that large, indoor Thanksgiving gatherings could lead to a spike in cases in the coming weeks, and asked families to avoid travel and keep gatherings limited to those who live in the same households.
“This Thanksgiving, please stay safe. Avoid large gatherings. Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands,” Murphy said in a tweet announcing the numbers.
He also thanked healthcare workers and other first responders for their efforts heading into the second wave of the pandemic.
“This Thanksgiving, I’m incredibly thankful for our heroic frontline who have been working around the clock to keep us all safe and New Jersey moving forward throughout this pandemic,” Murphy tweeted Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, typically the busiest travel day of the year, Murphy announced that New Jersey is abandoning the state-by-state formula it has used the last five months to determine its travel quarantine advisory formula, as virtually the entire country qualified for the list.
Instead, the state is asking all travelers from outside New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware to self-quarantine for 14 days, but to avoid unnecessary travel if possible.
“Given the increased risk of spreading COVID-19 for both residents who travel outside the state and for visitors into the state, New Jersey continues to strongly discourage all non-essential interstate travel at this time,” the governor said in a statement announcing the change.
New Jersey’s seven-day average of new cases as of Tuesday is 4,097 — up 9% since last week and 228% since last month.
While the seven-day average of cases has been higher than the pandemic’s first wave, the comparison can be deceiving because the state was conducting less than 12,000 tests a day in the spring and the outbreak was likely undercounted. The state is now averaging around 45,000 tests a day, and that does not include recently deployed rapid tests.
Still, other key figures officials used to measure the spread have also been rising.
There were 2,831 patients with either confirmed or suspected coronavirus across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Wednesday night — including 550 in intensive care, with 284 on ventilators. That’s far below the more than 8,000 hospitalized at the state’s April peak but the most since May 21.
The statewide positivity rate for tests recorded Saturday, the date with the most recent data, was 10.54%. The number has been below 4% during the summer.
The statewide rate of transmission dropped from 1.24 to 1.21. That’s far lower than the rate above 5 recorded in late March as the extent of the outbreak was still coming into focus and testing was scarce. But any number above 1 means the outbreak is expanding.
New Jersey has now reported 322,378 cases out of more than 5.8 million tests since March 4.
The state of 9 million residents has also reported 16,925 deaths from complications related to the virus in that time — 15,096 confirmed and 1,829 considered probable.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
Officials say initial doses of a coronavirus vaccine could arrive in New Jersey by Christmas, with priority going to vulnerable residents and health care workers. But a larger rollout could happen by April or May.
Still, Murphy has warned the next few months will be “brutal” as more people head indoors because of the colder weather and with the stretch of winter holidays ahead. Officials are calling on residents to keep wearing masks, practicing social distancing, washing hands, and limiting gatherings.
Murphy has also said the state is trying to use more “surgical” restrictions to fight the spread, but he has not ruled out another statewide shutdown like he ordered in the spring.
The governor has also said it’s goal to keep as much in-person learning at schools open as possible.
HOSPITALIZATIONS
There were 2,831 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Wednesday night. That’s 71 fewer than the night before.
Of those, 550 were in critical or intensive care (5 more than the night before), including 284 on ventilators.
There were 364 coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals Wednesday, according to the state’s online dashboard.
Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 have more than tripled over the last month.
Officials say hospitals are now better equipped to treat patients than they were in the spring and are confident they will have enough capacity. But they warn the more cases rise, the more likely hospitalizations — and eventually deaths — will keep growing.
SCHOOL CASES
Although hundreds of school districts have announced coronavirus cases and dozens of New Jersey schools have temporarily shut down since the start of the school year, state health officials have said 66 schools have had confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks.
Murphy on Tuesday announced 10 new in-school outbreaks over the past week. There have now been 269 total cases of in-school transmission in those 66 schools since the start of the school year.
Those numbers do not include students or staff believed to have been infected outside school, or cases that can’t be confirmed as in-school outbreaks.
AGE BREAKDOWN
Broken down by age, those 30 to 49 years old make up the largest percentage of New Jersey residents who have caught the virus (31.6%), followed by those 50-64 (24.5%), 18-29 (18.6%), 65-79 (11.6%), 80 and older (6.8%), 5-17 (5.5%), and 0-4 (1.1%).
On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with pre-existing conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (47.1%), followed by those 65-79 (32.2%), 50-64 (16%), 30-49 (4.3%), 18-29 (0.4%), 5-17 (0%) and 0-4 (0.02%).
At least 7,281 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. That number has been rising again at a steeper rate in recent weeks.
GLOBAL NUMBERS
As of Wednesday morning, there were more than 60.6 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.4 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.
The U.S. has reported the most cases (nearly 12.8 million) and the most deaths (more than 262,400).
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.
Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.