TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey reported a record low 260 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and Governor Phil Murphy said all of them were unvaccinated individuals. The governor said that since December just 0.06% of positive COVID-19 cases represented “breakthrough cases” or cases of virus infection among fully vaccinated individuals.
“Suffice it to say, these – the 260 cases that we’re reporting today should be considered to be almost entirely if not exclusively from unvaccinated individuals. As we’ve been discussing, this has been becoming increasingly, by the day a pandemic of unvaccinated individuals,” Murphy said. “We are working through Judy and her team at the Department of Health and our lab partners, our healthcare system partners, to collect regular data on any new breakthrough cases just as we do data on all of the other key health and hospital metrics. When we have that reporting system in place, we will add those numbers to our dashboards in these briefings, and I promise you they’re going to be stark. They’re going to tell the tale that we’ve been alluding to that this is now, sadly, a pandemic overwhelmingly among unvaccinated individuals.”
Statewide, New Jersey’s COVID-19 rate of transmission is 0.9%. Murphy urged residents, particularly those in inner cities where vaccination lags should get their vaccination shots.
“As the numbers show conclusively, these vaccines are effective, 99.94% effective against infection and – ready for this – 99.999986% effective against illness requiring hospitalizations. The vaccines work. They are safe. Even with the progress that we are making in our vaccination effort, we are today reporting with the heaviest of hearts an additional five confirmed COVID-related losses of life. As we do every day, let’s remember for a couple of minutes a few more of the New Jerseyans we have lost to this virus,” the Governor said.