Hello! Welcome back to the fourth weekly report in our series COVID-19 in Verona. I started this process four weeks ago to help readers understand COVID-19 in Verona and in Essex County. Over the last four weeks, I have followed the data as reported by the Essex County Department of Health and Rehabilitation, which tracks the cumulative number of cases in Essex County by city as of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., daily. MyVeronaNJ.com uses the data available as of 5 p.m. for the days reported on. On Friday, I will have a special report on COVID-19 for the entire month of April that will look at how Verona and Essex County have fared in comparison to the U.S. and other cities and countries. The report will look at larger trends and significant developments.
In the meantime, this report will follow the usual structure as my other weekly reports. If you missed last week’s report, or want to refresh yourself on the findings, you can read it here. For the latest information on COVID-19 in New Jersey, you can do so by reading the official webpage here.
Looking at Figures 1 and 2, we see the number of positive cases of COVID-19 for Verona and its immediate surrounding towns by number of positive cases and number of positive cases per one thousand residents, respectively. Montclair has continued to lead the week with the highest number of positive cases, which on April 19 hit 300. Montclair finished the week with a cumulative total of 334 positive cases, representing an increase of 11%. Starting out the week with the lowest number of positive cases was Essex Fells having 16, and after a net increase of 12.5% over the week, finishing with 18 positive cases. Verona started the week out with 86 positive cases and finished with 98 cases, which is an increase of 13.95%. As can be seen, Caldwell and Verona have seen very similar numbers. Caldwell started out the week with 76 cases, which was lower than Verona, but by April 21 it was tied with Verona at 86 cases. From April 21 to 24, Caldwell alternated between having 86 and 88 cases, but it finished the week with 90 cases, eight8 cases less than Verona. Caldwell’s overall increase in cumulative positive cases was 18.42% over the week.
Figure 2 shows a different picture. In terms of number of positive cases per 1,000 residents, Cedar Grove remained in first having the highest ratio at the start of the week with a ratio of 16.598. Following Cedar Grove was West Caldwell with a ratio of 12.641. North Caldwell just beat out Verona for the lowest starting ratio, starting the week at with a ratio of 5.499. Verona started the week with a ratio of 6.451. Verona finished the week with a ratio of 7.351, while North Caldwell finished with a ratio of 5.822.
Lastly, one more important graph to look at is how Verona is stacking up against Newark, one of the Essex County cities that has been hardest hit by COVID-19. In Figure 3, the number of positive cases in each city is graphed, and as can be seen, Newark continues to have a much higher cumulative number of positive cases than Verona. On April 19, Newark had 3,900 positive cases while Verona only had 86. On April 25, Newark had 4,867 positive cases while Verona had 98. Newark saw a 24.79% increase in its cumulative positive cases. In terms of the number of positive cases per 1,000 cases, the gap between Verona and Newark has continued to remain wide. Newark started out the week having a ratio of 14.072 positive cases per 1,000 residents, while Verona started at 6.451. By the end of the week, Newark finished with a ratio of 17.562 whereas Verona finished with a ratio of 7.351.
Just like last week reminded us to not forget about the good, this holds true this week. As of April 25, there were 9,899 tests that came back negative across all of Essex County, and hopefully we will see this number increase as more people are tested. Also, Verona is still doing well and if we continue to take precautions, hopefully we can exit this sooner than later.
Check back Friday to read my special report on COVID-19 for the entire month of April. As always, if there is anything you’d like to see just let me know.
