N.J. reports 13 COVID deaths, 3,896 cases. Vaccines for kids under 5 could start soon.

New Jersey on Friday reported 3,896 COVID-19 confirmed positive tests and 13 confirmed deaths as the White House confirmed a start date for kids under the age of 5 to receive the covid vaccine.

Children under 5 may be able to get their first vaccination doses as soon as June 21, if federal regulators authorize shots for the age group, as expected.

White House COVID-19 coordinator Aashish Jha outlined the administration’s planning for the last remaining ineligible age group to get shots. He said the Food and Drug Administration’s outside panel of advisers will meet on June 14-15 to evaluate the Pfizer and Moderna shots for younger kids.

New Jersey’s seven-day average for confirmed cases was 3,007 on Friday, down 19% from a week ago, but still up 36% from a month ago.

The statewide rate of transmission for Thursday was 0.96. When the transmission rate is below 1, that means new cases are declining.

There were 924 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases reported across the state’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night. Hospitalizations still remain significantly lower than when they peaked at 6,089 on Jan. 10 during the omicron wave.

Of those hospitalized, 113 were in intensive care and 46 were on ventilators. There were at least 169 people discharged in the 24-hour period ending Thursday, according to state data.

The positivity rate for tests conducted on Sunday, the most recent day with available data, was 17.32%.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now lists 13 New Jersey counties with “high” transmission rates — Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Salem, Sussex and Warren.

Those in high-risk areas are recommended to wear a mask indoors in public and on public transportation and stay up-to-date on vaccinations, according to the CDC.

Eight counties are in the medium risk category: Bergen, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Passaic, Somerset and Union. Masks are not recommended in the medium and low regions.

TOTAL NUMBERS

New Jersey has reported 2,065,040 total confirmed COVID-19 cases out of more than 17.8 million PCR tests conducted in the more than two years since the state reported its first known case March 4, 2020.

The Garden State has also recorded about 342,609 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases. And there are numerous cases that have likely never been counted, including at-home positive tests that are not included in the state’s numbers.

The state of 9.2 million residents has reported 33,755 COVID-19 deaths — 30,686 confirmed fatalities and 3,069 probable ones.

New Jersey has the eighth-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S. — behind Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia — as of the latest data reported Wednesday. Last summer, the state had the most deaths per capita in the country.

The latest numbers follow a major study that revealed even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain. Long COVID — the term commonly used to describe symptoms stemming from the virus long after a person no longer tests positive — has been found to affect between 10% and 30% of those who contract the infection, regardless of whether they have a mild or serious case. In New Jersey, that would mean that roughly 600,000 of the more than 2 million who have tested positive for COVID since the onset of the pandemic either have or have had long COVID.

VACCINATION NUMBERS

More than 6.93 million of the 8.46 million eligible people who live, work or study in New Jersey have received the initial course of vaccinations and more than 7.8 million have received a first dose since vaccinations began here on Dec. 15, 2020.

More than 3.79 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one. That number may rise after the FDA on Tuesday approved booster shots for healthy children between the ages of 5 and 11. U.S. regulators authorized the booster for kids hoping an extra vaccine dose will enhance their protection as infections once again creep upward.

SCHOOL AND LONG-TERM CARE NUMBERS

For the week ending May 22, with 57.8% of schools reporting data, another 10,948 COVID-19 cases were reported among staff (3,066) and students (7,882) across New Jersey’s schools.

Since the start of the academic year, there have been 135,409 students and 40,649 school staff members who have contracted COVID-19 in New Jersey, though the state has never had more than two-thirds of the school districts reporting data in any week.

The state provides total student and staff cases separately from those deemed to be in-school transmission, which is narrowly defined as three or more cases linked through contact tracing.

New Jersey has reported 924 total in-school outbreaks, including 6,631 cases among students and staff. That includes 48 new outbreaks in the latest weekly report ending May 31. The state reported 69 in-school outbreaks the previous week.

At least 9,114 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.

There were active outbreaks at 367 facilities, resulting in 4,034 current cases among residents and 3,753 cases among staff, as of the latest data.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of Friday, there have been more than 531 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University, and more than 6.29 million people died due to the virus.

The U.S. has reported the most cases (more than 84.5 million) and deaths (at least 1,008,063) of any nation.

There have been more than 11.38 billion vaccine doses administered globally.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DeionRJohhnson