Union County's COVID Cases: This Week's Updates

UNION COUNTY, NJ — New data has been released that shows the coronavirus continues to have a major impact on Union County.

On Friday, the county reported 48,598 confirmed cases of the virus since the beginning of the pandemic, an increase of 1,002 cases since a week ago, or 2 percent. The county also reported a death toll of 1,564. That's an increase in 28 deaths since a week ago, also 2 percent increase over the previous week's numbers.

Last Friday, the state reported 47,596 cases, as well as a death toll of 1,536.

Thus, while the pandemic continues to be a factor, the rate of new cases is slowing.

The disease’s impact is reflected in the state Department of Health's most recent "COVID-19 Activity Level Report," which is issued weekly.

If the county is in the "orange" zone, it means it has a rate of 10 to 25 cases per 100,000 people. “Yellow” means the county has a rate 1 to 10 cases per 100,000 people. If the overall activity is at an "orange" level, state officials say, school districts in those counties would have to take more serious steps — such as quarantining or even shutting down schools — if a child shows the symptoms of COVID-19.

"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 still provide remote instruction even as the number of new daily cases has dropped in recent weeks.

Other information

• Read Patch's updated list of Union County vaccination sites from Friday here.
• Read about how people are finding vaccine appointments in Union County here.
• On Wednesday, the state of New Jersey reported 57 new confirmed deaths from the virus in 24 hours, and 2,070 people battling the virus in hospitals. New Jersey has confirmed 55 cases in New Jersey of the U.K. variant of the virus.
• While the daily death toll in New Jersey is not as high as it was in the early months of the pandemic, it's also higher than in fall. Back on Sept. 7, there were two deaths reported statewide in 24 hours.
• As of this week, more than 500,000 Americans have 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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