TOMS RIVER, NJ – Toms River Mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill said on Tuesday that Central New Jersey hospitals night be fudging their COVID-19 numbers. Numbers provided by the hospitals, he says, aren’t showing the true colors of the reality of the COVID-19 situation reality, he claims.
Hill says numbers he receives each day from the hospitals are not showing an accurate picture. He said there are 400 COVID-19 patients currently in the Central Jersey region identified by the state and hospitals, but the actual number of patients who have the disease and went to the hospital specifically for COVID-19 is much less than what the raw figure from the hospital depicts.
“If we’re going to talk about this disease and science, then we’re gonna look at numbers,” Hill said at Tuesday night’s township council meeting. “Every day, I receive New Jersey hospitalization numbers via Community Medical Center.”
Hill said that currently in the Central Jersey region there are about 400 patients who are identified as COVID-19 positive. Many of those patients, Hill said are ‘patients under investigation’, meaning they are awaiting their COVID-19 test results.
“I’ve asked the hospital administrator does that mean that they’re there primarily for COVID-19 or could there be another disease,” Hill told the community at the public meeting. “The answer is, they could be in for kidney failure, heart failure and they tested positive on the way in. Right now, as of today, we have 27 patients, who are 4% of the ICU beds occupied by covid positive or patients under investigation.”
Hill said that data is also used by the Governor to determine closures, but Hill claims the data is flawed.
“I fail to see the science or logic in this,” Hill added. “I think at this stage, this disease is going to be with us and we’re going to have to learn how to safely live with it.”
Whether the discrepancy is in how the hospitals collect and report the data to the state and public officials or whether the discrepancy is in how the state uses the figures reported by the hospitals has been a source of contention for many since the pandemic began.