Nearly 30K 'Excess' Deaths In New Jersey During Pandemic: CDC

NEW JERSEY — New Jersey has seen a significant number of "excess" deaths in the past two years. That includes not only people who have died from COVID-19 but may also encompass fatalities such as health care shortages or overburdened health care systems, according to the agency.

Friday will mark the two-year anniversary of New Jersey's first-reported coronavirus case. Since Feb. 1, 2020, the Garden State has suffered 29,462 more deaths than officials would have estimated for a non-pandemic period, according to the CDC.

New Jersey's tally includes 3,960 excess deaths from causes other than COVID-19. That includes:

• 1,857 from Alzheimer's disease or dementia
• 1,179 from hypertensive diseases
• 857 from ischemic heart disease
• 857 from diabetes
• 723 from heart failure
• 872 from cerebrovascular diseases
• 561 from influenza or pneumonia
• 516 from malignant neoplasms
• 328 from renal failure
• 482 from sepsis
• 777 from other diseases within the circulatory system
• 796 from other diseases within the respiratory system

Nationwide, the CDC has reported 1,078,226 excess deaths, including 217,616 non-COVID deaths. In 2019, the agency recorded 2.8 million deaths, but the nation sustained roughly a half-million excess deaths the following two years. Deaths across the United States increased more than 40 percent above normal in the second week of April 2020, according to The Washington Post.

“The bulk of the excess deaths were a direct result of covid-19 infections, but pandemics have major cascading impacts on all aspects of society,” Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Washington Post.

He cited several health impacts during the pandemic period, including a rise in drug overdoses as people struggled to get treatment in isolation and a drop in cancer screenings.

New Jersey has the 12th most excess deaths of any U.S. state — New Jersey has the 11th highest overall population.

Gov. Phil Murphy will host the state's final COVID-19 news briefing Friday — the two-year anniversary of the state's first reported case. The state will continue to update COVID-19 data online, adding that in-person briefings will resume should the need arise.

"As we move into our new normal and transition from a pandemic stance to endemic one," Murphy said, "there is no longer the need for us to gather at a set time every week."