NJ Coronavirus: CDC, State Data Suggest Death Count Higher

NEW JERSEY — New Jersey may never know exactly how many people have actually died because of the coronavirus. That's because the two explicit resources for that information – the state Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – show that the data may have been underreported by significant margins.

Just-released New Jersey DOH statistics, as well as a New York Times analysis of data from the CDC, show a much-higher-than expected number of deaths in New Jersey and other hard-hit states since the pandemic escalated in March (a county-by-county list is below).

The release comes as families and loved ones have been demanding that state officials be more upfront about the level of contamination in nursing homes, veterans homes and other long-term care facilities, where fatalities have been underreported. Read more: Mystery Remains As NJ Nursing Home Coronavirus Deaths Keep Rising

CDC data shows that the number of people who died in New Jersey between March 8 and April 11 was 72 percent above the average for the five previous years. The current number of cases currently stands at 130,593, and 8,244 people have died. Read more: NJ Coronavirus Updates: Here's What You Need To Know

Indeed, the Times report says that, between March 8 and April 11, there were 5,200 unexplained "excess deaths" in New Jersey, well above the 2,183 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the state during the same time period. The CDC data is preliminary and could take up to eight weeks to be finalized.

The DOH, meanwhile, released statistics this week showing 7,621 people died in March and 14,755 in April, sizable increases over the average numbers of fatalities, respectively, from 2015 through 2019 for March and April: 6,604 and 6,089.

That means New Jersey had 1,017 more deaths than the norm for March. At the same time, New Jersey had at least 267 coronavirus fatalities reported that same month. So how did 750 people die?

At the same time, New Jersey had 8,666 more deaths than the norm for April. During the same time period, New Jersey had at least 6,961 coronavirus deaths. That leaves 1,705 additional and, perhaps, unexplained fatalities.

The Murphy administration has acknowledged the discrepancy, saying the coronavirus continues to be under-tested and New Jersey needs to at least double its capacity to develop an accurate assessment of the disease's impact.

Many of the deaths were likely attributed to underlying conditions, such as heart ailments, and a number of death certificates likely indicated that something other than coronavirus was the cause, said Edward Lifshitz, medical director for the state Department of Health.

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That problem was especially true at the onset of the disease's outbreak in New Jersey and before rapid-response tests were developed, officials said, and the lack of tests and long return rate of results led to a "lag" in reporting.

Gov. Phil Murphy said his administration is going through a "rigorous process" to make sure the numbers are "as accurate as possible, including presumptive cases that we're going to be constantly looking back and reassessing."

Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said there will be people who died who "had symptoms of COVID-19 but for whatever reasons they were not tested."

"Maybe they expired at home (or) maybe they were in the hospital and the tests had not been performed yet because of the lag," she said.

Some counties, in particular, had especially sizable increases in deaths from 2019 to 2020. Below is a list of counties and the percentage of increase in fatalities, comparing April 2019 to April 2020:

• Atlantic: 11.54 percent
• Bergen: 218.15 percent
• Burlington: 52.31 percent
• Camden: 33.83 percent
• Cape May: 11.65 percent
• Cumberland: 3.23 percent
• Essex: 252.75 percent
• Gloucester: 25.00 percent
• Hudson: 317.65 percent
• Hunterdon: 115.12 percent
• Mercer: 114.62 percent
• Middesex: 169.29 percent
• Monmouth: 89.12 percent
• Morris: 218.12 percent
• Ocean: 84.66 percent
• Passaic: 287.89 percent
• Salem: -4.84 percent
• Somerset: 192.97 percent
• Sussex: 177.89 percent
• Union 285.08 percent
• Warren: 150.67 percent