TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey leads the nation in vaccinations per capita. School children in the Garden State are forced to wear face masks to school. Many state government offices remain closed or restricted to the public. State workers are working remotely and the state has a governor who has enforced arguably the toughest COVID-19 restrictions in America.
But, none of it appears to be working. While states like Florida where there are no COVID-19 mandates are experiencing pandemic low numbers of COVID-19 cases, COVID-aware New Jersey is experiencing a third, larger wave, bigger than the one during the initial wave of the pandemic.
On Friday, Governor Phil Murphy announced 5,463 new cases and 17 new COVID-19 related deaths. Most of those cases are delta variant cases according to the New Jersey COVID-19 dashboard.
During the height of New Jersey’s 2020 lockdown, daily positive caseloads averaged between 3,000 and 4,000 per day. The last time New Jersey had over 5,000 cases in a single day was on April 1st when 5,608 cases were reported. Friday’s total was the highest single-day total since January 29th when 5,986 cases were reported.
New Jersey’s surge comes as the state is among leaders in vaccination rates with 69.2% of residents being fully vaccinated. Only New York (70.4%) and Massachusetts (73.1%) have higher vaccination rates.
Despite the high positive test rate, death rates in this new fourth wave are considerably lower than in the first two waves of COVID-19. The seven-day death rate average is 17. Before vaccinations, that rate reached a high of 268 in the spring of 2020. Last winter, the seven-day death rate average peaked at 98.