N.J. sees ‘catastrophic’ surge in deaths, thousands more than official COVID tally

N.J. sees ‘catastrophic’ surge in deaths, thousands more than official COVID tally

“This is just not something we have seen in American mortality data in a long time. It’s astonishing,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Irvine. “This is unlike anything I have ever seen in the United States, short of the 1918 influenza pandemic.” … “In New Jersey, the vast majority of deaths are directly related to COVID, in my opinion,” he said. “It’s a huge increase. It’s more than we’ve seen in any regular flu season, even the swine flu pandemic. It’s very significant.”