Stats: Over 97 Percent Age 18+ Vaccinated In Chatham Borough

CHATHAM, NJ — Since the start of the pandemic, Chatham Borough Mayor Thaddeus Kobylarz has updated the public at each meeting with coronavirus statistics.

At this meeting, he provided updates trickling down from the state and county to the borough level, in terms of COVID-19 statistics and vaccinations.

“New Jersey is currently in ‘growth territory’ as far as this pandemic is concerned,” Kobylarz said during the council’s meeting this past Monday.

Quoting Chatham Borough’s Health Officer, he said, “Locally, regionally and statewide, we are now trending in the wrong direction.”

He also said Chatham Borough has moved from a "low risk" level to a more "moderate risk" level, in terms of case counts.

This trend, Kobylarz said is, according to Trenton, due to the arrival of the Delta variant’s impact “being driven by the unvaccinated portion of the state.”

Statewide, he said the seven-day rolling average in daily coronavirus cases is at 1,222 as of Sunday, Aug. 8.

Kobylarz said this is a rise in cases from four weeks ago, when the rolling daily average was 260.

Statewide, the rate of transmission was 1.35 this past Sunday, he said, with it as high as 1.50 in recent weeks. Four weeks ago, Kobylarz said, it was at 0.95 percent.

He quoted case counts for Chatham Borough as follows:

• The cumulative tally of Chatham Borough coronavirus cases since the pandemic start is at 561
• There was an uptick in cases over the last four weeks of 14 cases
• During the month of July, there were nine reported cases in total, all during the second half of the month

As of August, there were five new cases reported since the council meeting on Aug. 9

He quoted vaccination statistics as follows:

• 67 percent of New Jersey residents have received at least one dose
• 59 percent of New Jersey residents are fully vaccinated
• 71.6 percent of Morris County residents have been given one vaccine dose
• 64.5 percent of Morris County residents are fully vaccinated
• 76 percent of the entire population of Chatham Borough is vaccinated, up three percentage points from a month ago
• Approximately 97 percent of residents age 18 and up are fully vaccinated, up two percentage points from a month ago
• Approximately 98 percent of residents over the age of 65 are fully vaccinated, up two percentage points from a month ago

See Kobylarz’s full remarks below on this topic:

“Immediately, locally it’s quite encouraging, but what’s going on in the rest of the state is of considerable concern,” Kobylarz said of all the numbers.

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.