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The New Jersey health care worker who was the state’s first coronavirus case says he’s on the mend — adding that he would be “dead and gone” had he not reached out to doctors in China about how to defeat the deadly bug.

James Cai, a 32-year-old physician’s assistant, remains hospitalized Thursday at Hackensack University Medical Center, where he’s now only experiencing a cough and fatigue after 11 days of battling the virus.

“Fortunately I have the resources and knowledge about it. I would be dead and gone already,” Cai told The Post in a text message.

He credited several Chinese doctors with helping his providers here better understand the infectious disease taking over his body.

“Most medical providers here don’t know about it,” Cai said. “Medical providers need to communicate with Chinese medical teams.”

Cai said he believes that he came down with the bug while at the Westin in Times Square for a medical conference from Feb. 28 to March 2.

During the final days of the conference, he started to experience bone pain, which was followed by a cough.

He then went to a local health clinic, where they determined that his heart rate was fast, he said.

Cai was instructed to go to the hospital, where CT scans showed that he lost 50 percent of his lung function.

Doctors started to treat him like he had bacterial pneumonia, but his family was unconvinced and reached out to five Chinese doctors who studied the virus that emerged in Wuhan.

It was only with the Chinese experts’ encouragement that they agreed to perform a coronavirus test, he said.

When it came back positive, they recommended he be treated with the antimalarial medicine chloroquine and the HIV drug Kaletra.

“Chinese experts suggest to treat with medicine to slow the virus first. Don’t wait,” he said. “Definitely I would not be here today [without them].”

Cai said since he was otherwise healthy, he fears how those who are older will fare fighting the virus.

“I am young. [People who are] 40 years and above [will] definitely not be making it,” Cai said.

His case is among the 23 people infected with the virus in New Jersey, where on Monday a state of emergency was declared.