LONG BRANCH, NJ – New Jersey reported over 30,000 new COVID-19 cases once again on Thursday as the omicron virus positivity rate is at 40%. That means 40% of people tested for COVID-19 are now returning with positive test results. That doesn’t count the people who take at-home tests and don’t report their results or people who don’t test but have the telltale omicron symptoms.
Omicron is spreading among the vaccinated and unvaccinated equally and even among the fully boosted. Last weekend, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s wife Tammy, who is fully vaccinated and boosted contracted the virus just days after returning from the family’s Central American vacation.
At a public press conference in Long Branch today Murphy said, “We’re literally breaking records every day.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a pandemic among the unvaccinated, but early reports have shown that vaccinated patients are experiencing less severe symptoms.
Murphy continues to push vaccinations, boosters, and masking as the mild form of COVID-19 spreads through the state, but that effort has not been effective in stopping the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant.
Earlier this week, Murphy admitted his plan to protect New Jersey from the virus isn’t working, using his own wife Tammy as an example.
“Tammy did everything right,” Murphy said. “She still tested positive.”
“Don’t underestimate how easily you can get infected from this thing, but the other lesson is I sit here – and please God this continues to be the case – she had no clue that she had it. She had zero symptoms. She still has zero symptoms. To me, that’s the bigger headline,” Murphy said. “If you do the right thing, you’re double vaccinated, you’re boosted, you do everything according to the guidance that we know works, you may get it because it’s so crazy transmissible.”