Did Omicron Peak In NJ? It May Take Weeks To Know, State Says

NEW JERSEY — Has the omicron variant peaked in New Jersey? The state has seen encouraging — albeit, short-term — trends in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, but the New Jersey Department of Health says it will take weeks to safely determine whether the surge reached its pinnacle.

For the first time in nearly a month, New Jersey's daily count of patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 declined — from 6,089 Tuesday to 5,933 Wednesday.

Case counts remain high but have also decreased in recent days. New Jersey hit a record-high 33,459 new cases Friday, but the state then averaged 20,496 new daily cases from Tuesday to Thursday.

But state officials warned that hospitalizations for the virus could continue to significantly increase. In fact, they "expect" the number of hospitalized COVID patients to reach about 8,000 within the next month, State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in Monday's state coronavirus briefing.

The state has never tallied more than 6,127 COVID-19 hospital patients, which officials reported April 29, 2020 — the first day of publicly available hospitalization data on New Jersey's COVID-19 dashboard.

New York has seen similar, short-term trends of infection totals declining. Although COVID hospitalizations continue to rise, the small stretch with declines in new cases and positivity rates have Gov. Kathy Hochul feeling optimistic.

"Looks like we might be cresting over that peak," Hochul said. Read more: NYC COVID Cases Plateau As Omicron Surge Slows, Hochul Says

New Jersey officials are singing a different tune, at least for the time being. The Garden State will need time to safely determine whether the omicron peak has passed, according to Donna Leusner, a spokesperson for the state health department.

"We are seeing a leveling off of cases, but hospitalizations are increasing and unfortunately deaths—a lagging indicator—are increasing," Leusner told Patch via email. "We need several more weeks until we can safely say it has peaked. We urge people to get boosted and vaccinated."

New Jersey's one-day dip in active COVID-19 hospitalizations may not indicate a long-term trend. The state's total of COVID hospitalizations has fluctuated during past surges before consistently moving downward.

The state's last downtick came Dec. 16, when 1,768 people in New Jersey hospitals had confirmed or suspected COVID-19. That figure has more than tripled since then.

COVID deaths also continue to increase in New Jersey, totaling 421 in the past week, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

A "peak" means the highest point before a downturn, Persichilli says. That may come in February, according to the state health commissioner. Read more: COVID-19 Surge May Peak In NJ This Month, Health Officials Say

"We expect increases in hospitalizations to reach about 8,000 probably by the end — I don’t have it in front of me, so the dates are not specific — by the end of the third week in January going into the first week in February," Persichilli said. "The peak could occur sometime in the first two weeks of February before there’s a downturn."

Persichilli noted that case numbers are an undercount. But the state expects the daily totals of new cases to stay between 20,000 and 30,000 through January, she said.

New Jersey's positivity rates have been some of the highest in the country during the omicron surge. Over the past week, 88.6 percent of COVID-19 tests in the Garden State have turned up positive — the highest rate behind three states and Washington, D.C., according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Positivity rates can decline through decreases in transmission and increases in testing.

New Jersey has seen a higher percentage of infections among people who completed their first series of COVID vaccinations. But unvaccinated people still represent the significant majority of hospitalizations and deaths from the virus.

For the week ending Dec. 26, 31,334 of the state's 101,000 COVID-19 infections were breakthrough cases. During that span, four of New Jersey's 2,640 COVID hospitalizations and five of the state's 146 deaths involved fully vaccinated patients.

"The unvaccinated are still the ones testing positive by a rate of more than two to one," said Gov. Phil Murphy. "The unvaccinated are still overwhelmingly the ones going to the hospital."