COVID Cases Rising: How Southern Ocean Medical Center Is Affected

MANAHAWKIN, NJ — As COVID-19 cases spike through New Jersey, infections among hospital staff are increasing as well.

The New Jersey Department of Health shares the number of staff cases at hospitals for the past 30 days. It has reported at least 100 new cases per day among hospital employees statewide since Wednesday.

In the past 30 days, 20.85 percent of cases among New Jersey hospital staff have come from workplace activity, while officials attributed the rest to community spread.

At Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin, there have been 14 new cases in the last 30 days, according to New Jersey's COVID-19 data dashboard. The hospital has 1,072 employees, according to figures from the NJBIZ 2020 hospital directory.

The 14 new cases in the last month is 1.3 percent of the hospital's staff.

The state health department reported 1,902 active hospitalizations among COVID-19 patients as of Sunday — New Jersey's highest total since April 23.

At Southern Ocean Medical Center, 63 percent of its inpatient beds (129 of 205) and 23 percent of its intensive care unit beds (10 of 44) were occupied as of Dec. 9, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services hospital utilization data.

The New Jersey Hospital Association is urging people not to delay medical care, including trips to the hospital.

The organization discovered a significant increase in deaths at home during 2020 — 95,715 overall, with COVID-19 listed as the primary cause for 16,548 people. Deaths at home never exceeded 76,000 in a single year from 2017-19, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association.

"It's impossible to know whether these excess deaths could have been prevented with timely access to hospital care," said Sean Hopkins, senior vice president of the NJHA's Center for Health Analytics, Research and Transformation. "But the trends are troubling, and they reinforce a critical message during a public health emergency: Please don't delay seeking the care you need."

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