Union County’s COVID Cases Still In ‘Red Zone:' See Updates

UNION COUNTY, NJ — The state Department of Health's most recent "COVID-19 Activity Level Report," which is issued weekly, says Union County is still in the “red zone" for coronavirus cases.

The "red zone" means the daily new COVID-19 virus case rate, per 100,000 people, is "very high" currently in 11 counties. That means they exceed 25 cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day average. The "orange" zone, or "high," means they have a rate of 10 to 25 cases per 100,000 people.

The latest reports say the overall coronavirus activity level is either "moderate,"/"yellow," or "high"/"orange" in all New Jersey counties. The northeast New Jersey counties are in the orange zone.

"When it is high risk, there are some recommendations that we make together with local school boards," said Edward Lifshitz, medical director for the state Department of Health.

Indeed, a number of school districts shifted to remote instruction when the numbers rose.

The overall coronavirus risk initially rose to "high" in each of the counties because:

• The new daily case rate in each of the counties rose to 10 or more per 100,000 people.
• The percent of COVID-19-like illnesses rose above 5.52 in each of the counties.
• The percent of positive cases rose above 10.01.

Union County reported a total of 47,596 cases on Friday, as well as a death toll of 1,536 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Other information

• New Jersey reported a death toll of 20,495 since the beginning of the pandemic, with 64 new deaths in the last 24 hours. There are 2,202 people hospitalized with the virus, 443 in ICU or critical care, and 300 of those on ventilators.
• Read the state's updated list of Union County vaccination sites here.
• As of Friday, more than 496,000 Americans had died of the virus. (You can see which states had the highest death toll in the past week on this CDC map.)

Here are statewide coronavirus resources:

• NJ COVID-19 Information Hub: https://covid19.nj.gov/
• General COVID-19 questions: 2-1-1
• NJ COVID-19 hotline: (800) 222-1222

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