Today Governor Murphy announced that there were 3,975 new positive cases and an additional 44 confirmed deaths resulting from COVID-19. To date, there have been 423,226 confirmed cases and 16,216 confirmed deaths. The rate of transmission is at 1.03. Since August, there have been 428 cases linked to the 98 school outbreaks.
The State continues to ask residents to download and use the new Covid Alert NJ, the State’s exposure notification smartphone app.
Since our last update, Governor Murphy issued no COVID-19 related Executive Orders.
On Tuesday, the first COVID-19 vaccination was administered in New Jersey. The federal government has allocated 76,050 first doses to New Jersey for the first tranche of the Pfizer-BioNTech (ultra-cold chain) vaccine, which began arriving at acute care hospitals Monday morning. New Jersey will roll out COVID-19 vaccines in phases in accordance with the Interim COVID-19 Vaccination Plan. The Department of Health has created a COVID-19 Vaccination webpage to provide resources and updates.
Today the Governor also announced the state is scheduled to open six vaccine “mega-sites” in January to administer the vaccine to frontline health care workers who are part of Phase 1A. It is anticipated that these sites will also be used for Phase 1B, essential workers, before moving to Phase 1C, adults 65+ with high-risk medical conditions. The sites are Meadowlands Complex, Rockaway Townsquare Mall, New Jersey Convention & Exposition Center, Moorestown Mall, Rowan College and Atlantic City Convention Center. The state is currently working on opening over 200 satellite vaccination sites.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor announced 16,368 new applications for unemployment, a 3.8% decrease from the prior week.
Contact: Lori Buckelew, Assistant Executive Director, lbuckelew@njlm.org, 609-695-3481 x112.