Gov. Murphy: NJ Has COVID 'Pandemic Of Unvaccinated Individuals'

NEW JERSEY — Gov. Phil Murphy is urging more New Jerseyans to get vaccinated, saying the state has a COVID-19 "pandemic of unvaccinated individuals" who need to do their part to contain and eliminate the virus.

During his Monday news conference, Murphy refrained from calling the coronavirus pandemic "over" because nearly 50 percent of the state still needs to get fully vaccinated.

And the coronavirus cases and deaths that continue to be reported every day, he said, largely or entirely involve unvaccinated people.

"As we’ve been discussing, this has been becoming increasingly, by the day, a pandemic of unvaccinated individuals," Murphy said, reminding people to sign up for a vaccine by clicking here.

Murphy said the state Department of Health and the state's laboratory and health care system partners continue to collect regular data on any new " breakthrough" cases to prove his point.

"When we have that reporting system in place, we will add those numbers to our dashboards in these briefings — and I promise you, they’re going to be stark," he said. "They’re going to tell the tale that we’ve been alluding to that this is now, sadly, a pandemic overwhelmingly among unvaccinated individuals."

Last week, the state Department of Public Health released data Wednesday that indicates cases of the coronavirus involving fully vaccinated residents are much rarer than expected.

About 0.06 percent of New Jersey's fully vaccinated persons have contracted the virus, New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said. There have been 1,319 so-called "breakthrough" cases of COVID-19 since vaccinations began in New Jersey in December, Persichilli said. Those who do experience breakthrough cases also report less-severe symptoms, she said.

Vaccine breakthrough cases occur when a person who has completed their vaccine series becomes infected with the COVID-19 virus. Read more: How Effective Is The Coronavirus Vaccine In NJ? New Data Released

New Jersey Health Director Ed Lifshitz said 505 patients showed symptoms, while 377 didn't have symptoms. There was no information available on the other 437 cases.

The statewide rate of transmission, meanwhile, is 0.9, a rate that's among the lowest ever, but Murphy said: "Again, the population among which this applies is being narrowed overwhelmingly to just unvaccinated" people.

"That’s not to say we don’t still have cases and we don’t have variants — because we do — but the vaccines are proving to be effective against all forms," Murphy said

The governor said that includes the "so-called Delta variant, which is the one from India, which is both more easily transmissible and has more dire health consequences if you get it. The vaccines work even against that."

"As the numbers show conclusively, these vaccines are effective, 99.94 percent effective against infection and — ready for this? — 99.999986 percent effective against illness requiring hospitalizations," he said. "The vaccines work. They are safe."

During the Monday press conference, Murphy was asked what metric he would use "to declare the pandemic over?"

"I measure it not necessarily in the health metrics because I'm of the opinion that this stays — assuming we beat it, and please God we do — it stays in our midst at some low level like the flu does."

Lifshitz added that "this is not going to be like a VE day or VJ day being the war memorial where you can declare today the war is over."

"I do think you need continued vigilance to make sure it doesn't pop back up," he said. "I do think that people need to be reminded to go out and get vaccinated, and we will need to continue to monitor for things like variants and other things to make sure this never gets back to where it had been in the past."