Mask Up In Most Of NJ, CDC Says As COVID Hospitalizations Increase

NEW JERSEY — The CDC continues to recommend that people in 18 New Jersey counties mask up for public, indoor spaces. The guidance comes with a gradual increase in New Jersey's total COVID-19 hospitalizations, which surpassed 1,100 patients for the first time since mid-February, according to state officials.

The CDC recommends masking in counties with "high" COVID-19 community levels — a metric based on hospitalizations and case rates that the agency adopted in late February. The agency updates its color-coded COVID-19 maps each Thursday.

For the second straight week, all New Jersey counties were in the "high" category except for three in the medium grouping: Mercer, Salem and Cumberland Counties.

The CDC's mask recommendations do not trigger any mandates in New Jersey. People may also choose to continue masking in any setting. But just three weeks ago, the agency only recommended indoor masking in six New Jersey counties, reflecting how quickly the state of the pandemic can still change on a local level.

State of COVID In NJ

The state tallied 1,105 hospital patients with confirmed or suspected COVID as of Thursday, according to the New Jersey Department of Health. That's the state's highest-reported mark since Feb. 17, when last winter's omicron wave diminished.

For comparison, here were New Jersey's COVID hospitalization totals during different points of the pandemic:

• April 29, 2020: 6,129 COVID patients in hospitals. This is the first day of hospitalization data on New Jersey's COVID dashboard.
• Dec. 22, 2020: 3,873. The highest-reported total during the 2020 winter surge.
• May 28, 2021: 528. One day before, Gov. Phil Murphy ended the mask mandate for most indoor, public spaces.
• July 2, 2021: 267 New Jersey's lowest-reported total since the pandemic began.
• Sept. 7: 1,186. New Jersey's highest-reported total during the delta wave that peaked last fall.
• Jan. 11: 6,089. New Jersey's highest hospitalization total of last winter's omicron wave and the state's highest number of COVID hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic.
• March 26: 342. Once the initial omicron surge waned, New Jersey got down to 342 hospitalizations from the virus — the lowest-reported total of the year.
• June 2: 927. The peak total of New Jersey's springtime COVID wave.
• June 22: 696. The state's lowest number of hospitalizations since the spring wave diminished.
• July 21: 1,046. One week before New Jersey's latest hospitalization total, meaning the number of people hospitalized with COVID increased by about 60 in the past week.

The state's transmission rate stands at 1.04 as of Friday — a hair down from last week's rate of 1.08, according to the state health department. A transmission rate higher than 1 indicates that each existing infection causes a new infection — a sign that the virus is spreading more quickly.

True case totals became more difficult to calculate in recent months because of the prevalence of at-home tests that don't typically get recorded in COVID statistics. But reported cases in New Jersey have remained steady in the past few weeks, despite an uptick from June.

New Jersey averaged 3,752 infections per day in the past week, according to federal data. That's about the same as the prior week's seven-day average of 3,682 but a 40 percent increase of the seven-day average of 2,668 recorded June 18.

Sixty-four people in New Jersey died from COVID in the past week — an uptick from the prior week's death toll of 48, according to the CDC.

For more coronavirus numbers, visit the state health department's COVID-19 dashboard, The New York Times data page for New Jersey and the CDC's data tracker.