Source: New Jersey Patch
Reports from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine and the New Jersey Department of Health, show that New Jersey has both succeeded and lagged in areas that scientists and researchers have used to track each state’s progress in dealing with the outbreak. Here’s what these reports are saying:
The rate of transmission has dipped back below 1.0, falling from a level that’s considered too high and would indicate that the disease is community-spread. It would also suggest that every person with coronavirus is spreading it to at least one other person.
New Jersey is trending in the right direction in terms of keeping its percentage of positive tests low. But new cases have also fluctuated lately and New Jersey has, at times, struggled to get a quicker response on testing.
Yet another report, from the group Covid Act Now, has reassigned New Jersey to “slow disease growth,” saying COVID-19 in New Jersey is spreading in a slow and controlled fashion, though the Garden State’s coronavirus preparedness meets international standards. The transmission rate dipped back below 0.99.
New Jersey’s hospitalization number dipped all the way down to 376 on Saturday, four months after hitting a high of 8,013. The number is the lowest since March 24th.
New cases have risen slightly lately, with Johns Hopkins reporting that New Jersey has had some recent upticks in its rolling three-day average of cases. The number is far down from April when New Jersey was averaging nearly 4,000 a day. But when indoor parties and lack of social distancing at New Jersey night clubs began to make news earlier this month, New Jersey’s rolling daily case average nearly doubled, hitting 516 on Aug. 13.
It was around that time that Murphy did one of the few reversals he’s made over the course of the crisis, shrinking the number of people allowed indoors from 100 to 25 and 25 percent capacity per room. Read more: NJ Reverses Indoor Gathering Rules As Transmission Rate Rises
Johns Hopkins says the state’s percentage of positive cases is at 1.0, which is among the lowest in the county. For comparison’s sake, Mississippi is at 39.8 percent and Florida is at 14 percent.
When the out-of-state cases started to rise sharply beginning in June, New Jersey started to find itself struggling in getting the right number of tests and getting results quickly. The average return on a test went from three to five days to almost seven days. Now, that number appears to have reversed to its earlier point.
Johns Hopkins says New Jersey has fluctuated recently in new tests per 1,000 people, declining from 3.4 on Aug. 15 to 2.9 on Aug. 20.