NJ's Mask Guidance Shifts Again: Where The State's COVID Battle Stands

NEW JERSEY — While New Jersey has ended mask mandates in almost all settings that previously had them, federal health officials have recommended masking in certain parts of the state with higher COVID-19 activity. But the CDC's guidance shifted Thursday, as the federal health agency lifted mask recommendations in all of the state's counties.

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.

Since late February, the CDC has recommended masks in at least parts of New Jersey each week — sometimes only a few, sometimes most of them, depending on COVID trends. But Thursday's map had no counties in the high category:

Here's how the map changed from the prior week's:

• Cape May, Atlantic and Salem Counties went from high to medium community levels.
• Mercer County moved from the medium to the low category.

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

NJ By The Numbers

While the lower community levels mark progress for New Jersey, the state isn't done with the virus. The Garden State saw increases in COVID cases and hospitalizations in the fall, compared to the summer, in both 2020 and last year. And COVID became even more prevalent in the winter of both years.

In terms of transmission levels — the CDC's framework for establishing an area's COVID risks before late February — New Jersey still has "high" transmission in every county:

But compared to this time last year, New Jersey has some new tools to fight COVID. The public can access antivirals and omicron-targeting booster shots that weren't available for most of the pandemic. Additionally, children ages 6 months through 4 years can get vaccinated against COVID.

Meanwhile, the state had 998 hospital patients with confirmed or suspected COVID as of Wednesday — the New Jersey Department of Health's last day of complete hospitalization data. The state has reported between 900 and 1,050 people hospitalized with the virus for most of the past month. New Jersey's last significant surge in COVID hospitalizations came during the initial omicron wave, when the state had roughly 6,000 hospital patients with the virus in January.

Nationwide, roughly 4,700 people died from COVID in the past week — including 39 people in New Jersey, according to federal estimates.

New Jersey's transmission rate stood at 0.89 as of Friday morning — a hair lower than the transmission rate of 0.92 at that time last week. A transmission rate lower than 1 indicates that each existing infection causes less than one new infection — a sign that the virus's spread is slowing down.

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 New Jersey's case totals continue to decline. The state averaged 1,776 new cases per day in the past week — down from the average of 2,152 daily infections in the prior week and the summer's high mark of 3,767 daily cases for the week ending July 23, according to federal data.

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.

What Else You Should Know

Here's more COVID news that could impact you.

• Nearly 8 million kids around the world lost a parent or primary caregiver to a pandemic-related cause, according to a new international study. The Americas had the second-highest rate of caregiver loss behind Africa, with the United States and Mexico showing the highest rates of caregiver loss in North America. Read more from NPR.
• Israeli scientists say they identified two antibodies that can fight all known COVID strains. The antibodies could become part of a potent infusion to treat patients with the virus, according to Tel Aviv University researchers. More from The Times of Israel.
• Pfizer will not share its vaccines with researchers studying next-generation inoculation, according to STAT. Experts say Pfizer's stance lines with its commercial interests but slows global progress toward developing more effective vaccines.