Public Health Info COVID19 and Respiratory Illness Activity Report for week ending 121623

Attached please find the COVID-19 and Respiratory Illness Activity Report. This report summarizes surveillance information for COVID-19, RSV, and other non-influenza viral respiratory illnesses.

Report Highlights:

• CDC COVID-19 Hospital Admission Levels for the MMWR week ending December 16, 2023 is medium in 7 counties (Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem) and low in all other counties.
• The percentage of deaths due to COVID-19 in the past week is a timely measure of mortality trends. For the week ending December 16, 2023, 2.7% of deaths were due to COVID-19 (CDC COVID Data Tracker).
• In the past week, 2.4% of emergency department visits were diagnosed as COVID-19 (CDC COVID Data Tracker).
• In the four weeks leading up to December 9, 2023, XBB.1.5 accounted for 37.8% of sequenced variants. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 9.6% and 9.4% of sequenced variants, respectively.
• For the week ending December 16, 2023, twenty COVID-19 and four other respiratory illness outbreaks were reported into the SIC module by K-12 schools.
• RSV activity and percent positivity in New Jersey are lower this week when compared to the previous week. Emergency department visits due to RSV are stable (CDC Respiratory Virus Activity Levels).

This report can be found on the NJDOH website at https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/statistics/covid/index.shtml.

Please contact the Communicable Disease Service at 609-826-5964 with any questions about the report.