NJ's COVID Hospitalizations Highest Since February, Mask Recommendations Return

NEW JERSEY — COVID-19 hospitalizations in New Jersey hit their highest total since mid-February, and federal health officials imposed mask recommendations for indoor, public spaces in parts of the state for the first time in a month.

While hospitalizations reached their highest mark in nearly nine months — 1,171 as of Wednesday, according to the New Jersey Department of Health — they remain relatively steady. State officials have reported between 1,100 and 1,200 hospital patients with confirmed or suspected COVID each day since Oct. 17.

But COVID's growing presence puts the Garden State in a delicate situation as it prepares for a potential "tripledemic" — the possibility that the seasonal peaks of COVID, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) coincide. Read more: 'Tripledemic' Warning As Respiratory Illness Cases Rise In NJ

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

New Jersey went four straight weeks without any county in the high category, but two crossed the threshold as of Thursday:

Essex and Union Counties went from medium to high levels. Everything else remained the same from the prior week's map.

The CDC's mask recommendations do not trigger any mandates in New Jersey. People may also choose to continue masking in any setting.

COVID By The Numbers In NJ

While New Jersey's hospitalization totals are higher than usual, they don't yet indicate crisis levels. In terms of total hospital capacity, 72.3 percent of New Jersey's inpatient beds and 46.1 percent of the state's ICU beds are occupied, according to federal data.

COVID patients occupy 4.9 percent of the state's hospital beds as of Friday — the ratio becomes concerning when it exceeds 10 percent and represents "extreme stress" at 20 percent, according to a framework developed by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Additionally, COVID patients are using 3.7 percent of the state's ICU beds. The University of Washington's framework indicates "high stress" at the 30 percent mark and "extreme stress" at 60 percent.

In the past week, New Jersey's average case totals and transmission rate both increased. The transmission rate surpassed 1, indicating that each infection leads to another infection — a sign that the virus is spreading more quickly. New Jersey's transmission rate hit 1.03 as of Friday morning after totaling 0.99 a week before and 0.9 two weeks prior.

True case totals became more difficult to calculate this year because of the prevalence of at-home tests that don't typically get recorded in COVID statistics. But the state's infection totals have crept upward, averaging 2,092 new cases per day in the past week, according to federal data. The state averaged 1,581 infections per day for the week ending Oct. 23.

Fifty-two people in New Jersey died from the virus in the past week, according to the CDC. Federal officials reported about 2,200 deaths from COVID complications around the nation during that timeframe.

A more encouraging development? COVID levels in the region's wastewater have significantly declined in the past month, according to Biobot Analytics, which monitors sewage as it relates to public health. Virus levels in the wastewater can often indicate COVID's prevalence in communities before lagging indicators, such as hospitalizations or deaths.

COVID wastewater levels are measured by estimated gene copies per milliliters of sewage. Wastewater samples in the Northeast averaged 702 copies/mL as of Wednesday. While still the highest out of any U.S. region, that's a far cry from the 1,248 copies/mL that Northeastern wastewater samples averaged for the week of Oct. 12. See the data here.

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.