New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy speaks at a press conference after touring the Covid-19 vaccination center at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison, New Jersey on January 15, 2021.
Mark Kauzlarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Monday issued a warning to residents who have not yet received the Covid vaccine, advising them to register for their first doses as hospital admissions and ventilator use increase across the state .
As Covid cases appear to be leveling off in New Jersey, hospital stays, intensive care room use, and ventilator use are increasing across the state, Murphy said. According to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, new cases rose 5% from a week ago to a seven-day average of 2,003 new cases on Sunday.
Almost 1,100 people are being hospitalized in New Jersey for Covid, according to federal and state data, 209 of them in intensive care. Murphy said 51% of Covid ICU patients are on ventilators. However, Murphy said the number of ventilators in use nationwide rose about 25% in the past week, adding that hospital admissions had increased more than 10% since last Monday.
“These numbers should be a wake-up call to the threat that the Delta variant poses predominantly to the unvaccinated,” Murphy said.
Despite the surge in ventilation use, New Jersey has the lowest percentage of ICU beds used for Covid in the country, Murphy said. Less than 7% of all intensive care beds in the state are occupied by Covid patients, compared to 30.5% of intensive care beds treating Covid patients nationwide.
Of New Jersey’s nearly 5.2 million fully vaccinated residents, just over 12,200 groundbreaking Covid cases have occurred, Murphy said. And only 307 fully vaccinated people in New Jersey had to be hospitalized for their symptoms, he added.
“If you’re on the fence, look at these numbers,” Murphy said. “There is no reason to leave your health and that of your family to chance. The vaccines are working.”
With the rise of the Delta variant, Murphy has implemented a series of mask and vaccine measures aimed at containing the spread of the virus in the community. The governor recommended that residents of the state wear masks indoors at high risk on July 28, and ordered Covid tests for select unvaccinated government employees the following week.
Murphy also announced on Aug. 6 that all staff and students at New Jersey schools must adhere to an indoor mask mandate at the start of the school year. He said at the briefing that all school districts would have free access to a supply of around 6 million KN95 and surgical masks, plus an additional 500,000 masks for children.
