Lakewood's Coronavirus Positivity Rate Hits 27 Percent

LAKEWOOD, NJ — New Jersey is sending more contact tracers and more coronavirus tests to Lakewood as a spike the township's number of positive cases continues to spiral upward, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Wednesday.

Lakewood's positivity rate is 27 percent, and that number has helped push the statewide positivity rate to 3 percent, the highest it's been since July, Persichilli said during Gov. Phil Murphy's coronavirus update. In the state's central region, the positivity rate is 3.79, with Ocean County sitting at 5.44 percent.

Ocean County has added more than 3,000 cases since Aug. 31, when the county had 10,483 people who were positive for the coronavirus, according to the Ocean County Health Department. As of Wednesday, there were 13,608 cases.

The bulk of that increase, however, has happened in the last three weeks. On Sept. 10, there were 11,542 cases in the county. Of the 2,100 new cases in Ocean County in the last 20 days, more than 1,200 have been in Lakewood, including 134 of the 188 cases announced Wednesday. Lakewood has 4,321 cases as of Wednesday, according to the county health department.

While the positivity rate has increased and the number of people hospitalized statewide has risen — there were 479 people hospitalized due to the coronavirus as of Wednesday; of those, 108 are in intensive care — the number of deaths has remained very low.

The increase in cases is significantly lower than the numbers of people who were ill in the spring, when there were thousands of new cases daily in Ocean County. But the increase has the attention of state officials.

"We are taking it very seriously," Murphy said.

Twenty contact tracers were sent to Lakewood this week, and Persichilli said the state is increasing the testing as well. It had been conducing 400 to 500 tests per week, she said, but tested more than 1,000 people on Friday and about 1,000 on Tuesday.

And Friday, Murphy and other state officials will be in Lakewood to meet with community and religious leaders and township and county officials to see if the cause of the increase can be pinned down.

"Is it the canary in the coal mine? I don't know," Murphy said when asked if the sharp increase in Lakewood cases was an indicator of a second wave coming.

Murphy said state officials have been speaking with Lakewood Mayor Raymond Coles and Police Chief Gregory Meyer, along with Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy and Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer. There have not been any violations of the state's emergency orders reported in recent weeks, but Cpl. Patrick Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said there have been photos circulating showing people in some synagogues not wearing masks.

Callahan issued a reminder to all houses of worship, saying the capacity for worship services is either 150 people or 25 percent of the capacity, whichever is the smaller number, and that masks must be worn inside.

It's a reminder that synagogues are stressing, too. The Lakewood Scoop published photos from synagogues with signs that said anyone without a mask would be barred from entry. They also are limiting how many people can enter at one time, according to the signs.

"We're all trying to figure out the Lakewood spike," Murphy said. He noted that one of the issues is that Lakewood is very densely populated, with more than 100,000 residents in a very small area.

"This is the fastest growing community of any size in our state," he said, "a dense fast-growing community."

The community also has had two religious celebrations in the last 10 days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, though state officials said they did not have enough information to determine whether the sharp increase was related to the holidays.

In the Lakewood Public Schools, which fully returned to school on Sept. 4, announced Wednesday there have been four students and 10 staff members in the district who have tested positive for the virus since Sept. 1. Most of the cases have been scattered across the 6,000-student district, but Lakewood High School had three staff members and one student test positive. None of those four cases were related to each other, Superintendent Laura Winters said.

Ocean County officials have been monitoring the situation as well, and a week ago county health officials put out a list of suggestions and reminders to residents to keep adhering to the safety precautions.

"We certainly understand why many people are getting what’s been termed as 'COVID fatigue' or 'pandemic fatigue,' " said Daniel Regenye, the department's public health coordinator. "People are dealing with a lot of challenges," such as job loss, ill family members and other concerns.

"Dealing with those types of issues and still trying to do what’s right to protect themselves, their loved ones and the community can wear some people down," he said.

But he urged residents to continue to practice social distancing and wearing masks.

"Unfortunately we aren’t out of the woods yet and we’re still uncertain of any definitive timeline for a COVID-19 vaccine," Regenye said. "(We) are asking for continued cooperation and to keep up the good work. Try to get everyone involved and this can help reduce the load on just you."

"We’ve come too far to have any major upticks at this point," he said. "If we all keep doing the right thing and if everyone continues to pitch in and support each other then we can mitigate the spread of this virus and get closer to the goal of finding a vaccine."

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This article originally appeared on the Lakewood Patch