The bulk of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in New Jersey were actually admitted for a reason other than COVID-19, officials said Monday.
Of the 6,075 people with COVID-19 and hospitalized in the state, just 2,963 were admitted for COVID-19, New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during a briefing.
"We have a fair number of what I've started to call COVID incidental, or incidental COVID, meaning you went in because you broke your leg but everyone's getting tested and it turns out you've got COVID, you didn't even know it," Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said. "My wife didn't know it and still she's not back in the in the game but never had any symptoms, so there is a significant amount of that."
States have during the COVID-19 pandemic largely neglected to distinguish hospitalizations for COVID-19 versus incidental COVID-19.
Massachusetts is among the other states planning to make the data public soon.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Sunday that some hospitals that her agency has spoken to have up to four in 10 COVID-19 patients who are being admitted for other reasons. She did not know how many of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the nation were due to other reasons, and the agency has not responded to a request for that information.
In New Jersey, nearly one in three hospitalized are designated as fully vaccinated, or having received their second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab, at least two weeks prior to admission. That percentage is much higher than earlier in the pandemic.
Out of 82 pediatric patients, just 27 are in hospitals with a principal diagnosis of COVID-19, Persichilli said. Many of the youth are unvaccinated, she said.
The split between with or because of COVID-19 isn't entirely clear-cut, New Jersey's top health official stressed.
"Half of them have a principal, what they call the principal diagnosis, so the main reason for being admitted. The other half, on the other hand, are testing positive for COVID and COVID then becomes a contributing or comorbid condition that could or could not worsen their principal diagnosis, their principal reason for being admitted," she said.
"So you can't really parse it out totally, half and half. If you're admitted to the hospital with cardiovascular problems and you're COVID- positive, that may be adding to the problems that you have. So it's not as clean-cut as half and half."
Murphy and Persichilli encouraged people to get a COVID-19 vaccine and, if they already have, to get a booster, as data increasingly show the primary regimen provides little to no protection against CCP virus infection and reduced protection against severe disease.