TOMS RIVER, NJ – Ocean County’s COVID-19 positive caseload continues to grow as 2,125 new cases were reported over Christmas weekend between Friday and Sunday. These totals do not include at-home rapid tests not reported to state or local health departments.
The weekend figure accounts for nearly 2.5% of all COVID-19 cases reported since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020. The average of 700 per day is greater than any single day totals between March of 2020 and today.
New Jersey health officials have reported that the omicron variant is now the dominant strain of the COVID-19 virus over the past two weeks.
On Monday, state officials reported 10,054 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases with a 1.66 rate of transmission. Despite the extraordinarily high number of cases in New Jersey, hospitalizations, ICU beds and ventilator usage remains far below the levels of the spring 2020 and winter 2020-21 totals, but are increasing slightly each day.
On Christmas Day, the state reported nearly 17,000 new cases. Over the Christmas weekend, New Jersey registered 45,000 new positive cases statewide.
Common symptoms of omicron include headache, fever, stuffy nose, fatigue, and cough.