Friday, April 3

On March 23rd I posted “How long does the virus remain on surfaces". I had occasion to speak to one of the authors on the paper I cited. What came out of that discussion was him advocating for the public to start to use masks of any kind in public. This includes home made masks and improvised masks such as a scarf.

The CDC is considering it. I usually do not like to get ahead of CDC recommendations but I’m doing this because I don’t believe it will hurt.

I want to be clear and truthful, according to my contact, homemade and improvised masks offer only limited protection to the wearer but protect others. So, I like everyone to wear some kind of mask for this to work. If everyone you encounter is wearing a mask, then your risk decreases.

I have no power to declare or enforce this. I’m hoping it becomes a badge of honor to wear one. It shows you are “one for all”.

Please do not hoard. Hospitals need masks too. Even cloth and improvised masks. If you have the ability to make them then please make some and donate them to the town. You can drop them off at the senior center.

I want to stress something. The purpose of the mask is to prevent asymptomatic people from spreading the virus. When you breath into the mask, if you are indeed a carrier, you are contaminating it. So if you touch the mask you are getting the virus on your hands. Therefore you still need 6ft spacing and don't touch your face and DON'T TOUCH YOUR MASK. This virus is a pain in the asymptomatic.

The Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders has been working with Congressman Tom P. Malinowski and Governor Philip D. Murphy to establish a joint COVID-19 test site with Hunterdon County.

Securing enough test kits for residents and personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff remains a major stumbling block.

"We’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to get access to supplies and to set up a test site for the health and safety of our residents,” said Freeholder Director Shanel Y. Robinson. “Our partners in this initiative include Congressman Malinowski, Governor Murphy, the New Jersey Department of Health, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management and Hunterdon County. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure that all possible resources are made available to residents in Somerset and Hunterdon Counties.”

Somerset County will provide updates as more information becomes available.

To stay up to date with Somerset County events and information, sign up for free email alerts.

I realize the numbers are increasing. Later today I will post some slightly encouraging news about the numbers.

New cases 29
Total cases 151
New deaths 1
Total deaths 5

5 year old
20 year old
26 year old
28 year old
29 year old
31 year old
31 year old
34 year old
35 year old
36 year old
38 year old
39 year old
49 year old
51 year old
55 year old
59 year old
61 year old
64 year old
66 year old
68 year old
71 year old
73 year old
74 year old
74 year old
76 year old
79 year old
79 year old
80 year old
81 year old

The individual who died was 60 years old and passed away on 4/2. His case was reported on Tuesday 3/31.

I do not answer questions about location of the positives. I do not have that information. For the reasons why please see my post on March 31

Please see the status map. Due to reporting vs posting time our numbers can vary from the map numbers.

See the State's dashboard here.

Warning: you are approaching science content.

The numbers keep rising which raises anxiety along with it. There is, however, a little hope coming from the numbers. Here is a list of the total number of positive tests in Somerset County. The second column is the total numbers to date, for each date; and the third is the number of new positves for the day.

3/10/2020	1	1
3/11/2020	1	0
3/12/2020	1	0
3/13/2020	1	0
3/14/2020	2	1
3/15/2020	5	3
3/16/2020	5	0
3/17/2020	5	0
3/18/2020	10	5
3/19/2020	15	5
3/20/2020	23	8
3/21/2020	44	21
3/22/2020	55	11
3/23/2020	73	18
3/24/2020	105	32
3/25/2020	139	34
3/26/2020	190	51
3/27/2020	218	28
3/28/2020	254	36
3/29/2020	293	39
3/30/2020	331	38
3/31/2020	405	74
4/1/2020	446	41
4/2/2020	515	69
4/3/2020	586	71

See figure 1 for the graph

Still increasing. Most people are interested in the total and how many new that day. But there is another important number.

I did some calculations and I found something interesting. In epidemiology an important factor is how long it takes for the number of infections to double. It’s called doubling time. Let me explain. If one person is infected that person only has so much opportunity to infect others. If 5 people are infected there is a much greater opportunity for them to infect people, so we expect a larger number of new positives the next day. Doubling time sees through that in some ways.

For COVID19 we measure doubling time in days. The higher the doubling time the slower it is spreading. With a 1-day doubling time a single infection grows to 32,768 infections in 16 days. But with a 5-day doubling time after 30 days a single infection would only be 32 infections.

You don’t need to understand this paragraph. I put it in so people can check my work. If you put the number of infections into a formula you can calculate doubling time. I did it over 3 days to smooth out fluctuations. So, I calculated every day looking back over 3 days. The formula is then Ln(2)/(Ln(df/di)/3) where df is the number of positives on the final day and di is the number of positives on the initial day (3 days earlier). I started with March 14 because the numbers were too small initially.

The result is in Fig 2.

This is showing a trend toward larger doubling times. That’s good. Now, I want to emphasize, this could be due to a limitation in testing. And I’m not saying it’s time to celebrate. But it also could mean social distancing is beginning to work. We’ll have to watch and see.

For completeness Fig 3 shows the doubling time for the State. It is also tending to rise.

You’ll note I did the above calculations for the County and the State. Franklin numbers are too small for doubling times to have any meaning.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) has announced a new loan program for small businesses impacted by COVID-19. NJEDA will launch the application for its Small Business Emergency Assistance Loan Program on Monday, April 13, 2020 at 9:00 am. A link to the program application will be posted on the State’s COVID-19 Business Information Hub. To provide business owners the opportunity to prepare to apply for the loan, a .pdf version of the application will become on Monday, April 6th.

The Small Business Emergency Assistance Loan Program is a $10 million program that will provide working capital loans of up to $100,000 to small and mid-size businesses with a physical commercial location in New Jersey. To qualify, businesses must have less than $5 million in annual revenues and be able to show a negative impact resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. Loans made through the program will have ten-year terms with zero percent interest for the first five years, then resetting to the NJEDA’s prevailing floor rate for the remaining five years, with a three percent cap.

Additionally, earlier this morning, the NJEDA launched an application for its Small Business Emergency Assistance Grant Program at 9:00 am. This portal will be open until April 10 and is done on a first come, first served basis. You can access the portal here.

For a quick way to see if your business qualifies for a variety of loan programs, please access the Eligibility Wizard here.

The NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development is urging employers to keep employees on the payroll when possible throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and to take advantage of a 100 percent, dollar for dollar, payroll tax credit provided under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). For more information on which employers are covered under the law, please visit the US Department of Labor Employer Resource Guide.

New Jersey workers with questions about eligibility for benefits should view these NJ-focused charts.