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The news comes as what’s expected to be more than a month of vaccinations of nursing home residents and staff in the Garden State were beginning.
It underscored the fact that New Jersey has the most coronavirus-related nursing home deaths per capita in the country – about 45% of its more than 17,000 confirmed cases.
And the numbers are rising in step with the largest spike since May in coronavirus cases throughout New Jersey.
December’s New Jersey nursing home death toll includes at least 310 long-term care residents and a staffer at more than 100 facilities, according to NJ Advance Media.
The number continued its dramatic increase from 45 in September to 65 in October to 111 in November, the report says.
Although they’re doing everything possible to stave off the disease, it’s “still coming into the long-term care facilities,” state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said earlier this week.
More than 425 facilities had active COVID-19 outbreaks, more than double the number of early November, she said.
More than 5,600 residents and staff tested positive -- a 72% jump in new cases from November, NJ Advance Media reported.
The locations range in size for a Warren County rest home where nearly all residents apparently were infected to larger facilities affiliated with hospitals, the report found.
At a Gloucester County facility that escaped the first wave of the pandemic without much harm, for instance, the virus last month reportedly killed 14 of 87 residents who’d contracted it.
Another in Ocean County had 17 COVID-related deaths in December, when 80 residents and 54 staff members were infected, the report says.
Initial vaccinations were scheduled at 539 nursing home facilities in New Jersey, with more expected through the beginning of February, Persichilli said.
READ MORE: Deaths continue to leap at N.J. nursing homes
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