N.J. reports 3,823 new COVID cases, 29 additional deaths as vaccinations top 780K – NJ.com

New Jersey on Sunday reported another 3,823 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 29 additional deaths as an impending snow storm threatens to disrupt vaccination efforts.

Hospitalizations declined to 2,901, the lowest since Nov. 28. The positivity rate for tests conducted on Wednesday, the most recent day available, was 8.69% of the 54,492 tests conducted.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced the latest numbers on Twitter Sunday morning and the state is administering about 25,000 vaccine doses a day on average. There have now been more than 780,000 vaccine doses given to New Jersey residents.

New Jersey has now lost 21,484 residents in the nearly 11-month outbreak, with 19,355 confirmed fatalities and 2,129 considered probable. The death toll for January rose to 2,377 confirmed fatalities, the most in any month since May.

The rate of transmission ticked up slightly to 0.94, up from four straight days of 0.91. Any number under 1 indicates that the outbreak is slowing.

The total number of confirmed cases is now 623,541 out of more than 9.2 million positive tests. There have also been 73,288 positive antigen tests, which the state recently began reporting publicly. Those cases are considered probable and health officials have warned the positive antigen tests could overlap with the confirmed PCR tests because they are sometimes given in tandem.

Murphy announced he’s extending the ban on interstate sports for certain age groups, including high school programs, that was set to expire Sunday. The ban was first announced in November.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

VACCINATIONS

There have been 785,588 vaccine doses administered in New Jersey so far, according to the state’s dashboard. Of those, 656,174 were the first of two doses people will receive.

That’s out of more than 1.23 million doses the state has received from the federal government, according to a running tally by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

All six of the state’s vaccine mega-sites have now opened along with about 200 other locations statewide, though some mega-sites have had to suspend operations for a day after running out of doses. New Jersey State Police Col. Patrick Callahan said on Friday that there are plans to remove snow at the six state-run megasites to make sure there are ways in and out.

On Wednesday, Murphy said the state can now expect about 130,000 doses from the federal government over the next three weeks, up from 100,000, but demand is still far outpacing the supply in the state.

VACCINATIONS BY COUNTY

• ATLANTIC COUNTY – 22,813 doses administered
• BERGEN COUNTY – 86,616 doses administered
• BURLINGTON COUNTY – 38,742 doses administered
• CAMDEN COUNTY – 46,359 doses administered
• CAPE MAY COUNTY- 11,358 doses administered
• CUMBERLAND COUNTY – 11,498 doses administered
• ESSEX COUNTY – 62,777 doses administered
• GLOUCESTER COUNTY – 26,024 doses administered
• HUDSON COUNTY – 36,437 doses administered
• HUNTERDON COUNTY – 10,785 doses administered
• MERCER COUNTY – 21,023 doses administered
• MIDDLESEX COUNTY – 58,828 doses administered
• MONMOUTH COUNTY – 59,564 doses administered
• MORRIS COUNTY – 58,242 doses administered
• OCEAN COUNTY – 47,462 doses administered
• PASSAIC COUNTY – 36,853 doses administered
• SALEM COUNTY – 4,691 doses administered
• SOMERSET COUNTY – 30,871 doses administered
• SUSSEX COUNTY – 13,151 doses administered
• UNION COUNTY – 38,734 doses administered
• WARREN COUNTY – 8,018 doses administered
• UNKNOWN COUNTY – 25,732 doses administered
• OUT OF STATE – 29,010 doses administered

HOSPITALIZATIONS

There were 2,901 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Saturday night. That’s 174 fewer than the previous day.

That included 519 in critical or intensive care (14 fewer than the previous night), with 355 on ventilators (4 fewer).

There were also 423 COVID-19 patients discharged Friday, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Murphy has said any hospitalizations over 5,000 patients would likely trigger new rounds of restrictions. But the number of people being hospitalized has mostly ticked down slowly in recent days after hitting a more than seven-month high of 3,873 people on Dec. 22.

The state hit a high of more than 8,000 hospitalizations in April.

SCHOOL CASES

At least 629 students and staff in 131 school districts in New Jersey have caught COVID-19 through in-school outbreaks, according to the latest update from state health officials.

That’s an increase of 10 districts from the previous weekly report. There are now confirmed in-school outbreaks in all 21 counties, though the state does not identify the individual school districts.

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. Though the numbers keep rising every week, Murphy has said the school outbreak statistics remain below what state officials were expecting when schools reopened for in-person classes.

New Jersey defines school outbreaks as cases where contact tracers determined two or more students or school staff caught or transmitted COVID-19 in the classroom or during academic activities at school.

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 (31.1%), followed by those 50-64 (23.5%), 18-29 (19.3%), 65-79 (11.1%), 5-17 (7.9%), 80 and older (5.3%), and 0-4 (1.6%).

On average, the virus has been more deadly for older residents, especially those with preexisting conditions. Nearly half the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents 80 and older (47.49%), followed by those 65-79 (32.56%), 50-64 (15.52%), 30-49 (4.05%), 18-29 (0.36%), 5-17 (0%), and 0-4 (0.02%).

At least 7,748 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 months, with deaths at the state’s nursing homes nearly tripling in December.

There are currently active outbreaks at 425 facilities, resulting in 7,514 active cases among residents and 8,102 among staffers.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of early Sunday, there have been more than 102.7 million positive COVID-19 tests across the world, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 2.2 million people have died from coronavirus-related complications.

The U.S. has reported the most cases, at more than 26 million, and the most deaths, at more than 440,000.

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.