Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli warned New Jersey residents that household cleaning products should not be “ingested or injected.” (April 20 pool photo by Kevin Sanders. Click to enlarge.)
[See UPDATE below]
By JOHN T. WARD
While the deaths of 252 more New Jerseyans were added to the COVID-19 toll Friday, state officials pointed to what they saw as 10 days of encouraging data in the fight to tame the crisis.
“There’s no question things are getting better,” said Governor Phil Murphy, but “we’re not out of the woods yet.”
The state health department’s COVID-19 online database reported 5,617 state residents have now died since the first death, in Bergen County, on March 10. The largest one-day increase, of 379, was reported Tuesday.
State Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli cited a handful of metrics showing “significant” improvement over the last two weeks. They included new hospitalizations, down 17 percent; the number of patients in intensive care or critical care, down 6 percent; the number on ventilators, down nearly 13 percent; and the percentage of ICU patients on ventilator, down from a high of 99 percent on April 10 to 77 percent Friday.
Here are the latest statewide COVID-19 figures:
Deaths in the monthlong pandemic: 5,617, up 253 from Thursday’s update
Positive tests: 102,196, up 3,047
Patients in hospitals: 6,847, down 393
Patients in intensive/critical care: 1,933 down 57
Patients on ventilators: 1,487, down 25
Patients discharged in preceding 24 hours: 778, up 26
While the number of new cases is tapering off, “it’s still significantly high,” said Persichilli.
According to the Covid Tracking Project, New Jersey accounts for one in every nine positive cases in America.
Persichilli also warned residents to be careful when using household cleaning agents.
“Certainly, they should never be ingested or injected,” she said, without mentioning President Trump, who suggested Thursday that disinfectants should be examined as a possible treatment for COVID-19, remarks that were widely derided. (On Friday, Trump said he had been speaking “sarcastically” to mock reporters and “just to see what would happen.”)
[UPDATE] Late Friday, Monmouth County reported its 53 municipalities had 5,429 known cases of COVID-19. Here’s the breakdown by town:
- Aberdeen: 174
- Allenhurst: 3
- Allentown: 5
- Asbury Park: 111
- Atlantic Highlands: 21
- Avon-by-the-Sea: 10
- Belmar: 14
- Bradley Beach: 27
- Brielle: 22
- Colts Neck: 56
- Deal: 23
- Eatontown: 164
- Englishtown: 27
- Fair Haven: 21, up 1 from Thursday
- Farmingdale: 12
- Freehold Borough: 231
- Freehold Township: 467
- Hazlet: 212
- Highlands: 21
- Holmdel: 170
- Howell: 449
- Interlaken: 1
- Keansburg: 100
- Keyport: 63
- Lake Como: 14
- Little Silver: 31, up 1
- Loch Arbour: 1
- Long Branch: 320
- Manalapan: 393
- Manasquan: 26
- Marlboro: 356
- Matawan: 122
- Middletown: 399
- Millstone: 63
- Monmouth Beach: 16
- Neptune City: 33
- Neptune Township: 296
- Ocean: 212
- Oceanport: 47
- Red Bank: 121, up 5
- Roosevelt: 3
- Rumson: 29
- Sea Bright: 9
- Sea Girt: 10
- Shrewsbury Borough: 34
- Shrewsbury Township: 8
- Spring Lake: 12
- Spring Lake Heights: 16
- Tinton Falls: 132
- Union Beach: 34
- Upper Freehold: 37
- Wall: 194
- West Long Branch: 55
- Unknown: 2
