As NJ COVID hospitalizations continue to rise, the number on ventilators has jumped 50%
James M. O'NeillCOVID hospitalizations in New Jersey continued to rise on Friday, and it appears more patients being hospitalized over the past week have been in need of more intensive care.
Hospitalizations stood at 5,701 on Friday night, an increase of 80 from the prior day, after an adjustment to Thursday's count by the state health department.
That represents a 1.4% increase in hospitalizations. But those in the ICU stood at 812 Friday night, up 4% from the prior day, and those needing a ventilator stood at 441, a 10.5% increase from the prior day.
While hospitalizations have increased by 21% since Jan. 2, driven in part by the spread of the omicron variant, those in the ICU have risen by 26%, and the number of patients on ventilators has grown by 51%.
The state on Saturday confirmed that another 72 people have died from COVID. That puts the total number of confirmed or probable deaths from COVID at 29,444 since the pandemic began 22 months ago.
The state Health Department also reported a daily count Saturday of 29,564 new COVID infections confirmed by PCR tests — the third highest daily count since the pandemic began — and 5,253 new infections confirmed through antigen tests.
But that's only a partial snapshot of the total number of new cases, since those numbers don't include results from at-home test kits or infected people who didn't bother to get tested.
Hospitalized COVID patients needing the most intensive care remain far and away those who are unvaccinated. For instance, Hackensack Meridian Health reported on its Facebook page that of the 1,062 COVID patients its 11 hospitals were treating Wednesday, 55% were not vaccinated.
Even more telling, among those needing ICU care, 68% were not vaccinated, and of those needing a ventilator to help them breathe, 74% were not vaccinated.
At the same time, hospitals continue to see significant numbers of staff having to isolate at home because of positive test results. On Friday, there were 522 new cases of COVID infection among hospital workers, following daily new case counts of 779, 851, 767, 672 and 334 in the preceding days.
More:How to report your positive at-home COVID test result to the NJ Health Department
That makes it an even greater challenge for hospitals to care for the growing number of COVID patients they are receiving. To bolster hospital staff, the state is getting strike teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Over the past 30 days, University Hospital in Newark has seen the highest number of COVID infections among staff, with 649.
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Next is Hackensack University Medical Center with 503, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with 499, St. Joseph's University Medical Center in Paterson with 466, St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton with 415, Morristown Medical Center with 369 and Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus with 365.
To cope, some hospitals are moving administrators into support roles and postponing non-emergency surgeries.
More:What steps could Gov. Murphy take as COVID cases surge in New Jersey?
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The one upside is that patients admitted with COVID-19 now are by and large staying for a briefer period than during the earlier waves of the pandemic, are recovering faster, and are less likely to die from the disease.
New Jersey nursing homes face a similar issue with depleted staff, and surges in cases among both patients and employees. There are currently 513 active COVID outbreaks at long term care facilities, with 5,627 infections among residents and 8,679 among staff. Starting Monday, the state is deploying National Guard personnel to help offset the losses among nursing home staff.
The worst outbreak has been at Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center, formerly Andover Subacute II, in Sussex County, with 192 cases among residents, 108 cases among staff, and three deaths among residents.