Despite improving projections, the coronavirus outbreak in New Jersey continues to escalate, with state officials Tuesday reporting at least 68,824 total cases and 2,805 total deaths, marking an increase of 4,059 positive tests and 365 new fatalities in the last 24 hours.

The latest death toll marks the largest one-day increase in fatalities in the Garden State since the outbreak started in early March.

Gov. Phil Murphy repeated Tuesday there’s evidence that the rate of increase is slowing and that social distancing efforts including a near-lockdown stay-at-home order have begun to take hold. But the state has yet to hit its plateau.

Murphy stressed the sharp increase in cases and deaths Tuesday may be catching up on reporting cases from Easter weekend.

New Jersey has 128,604 residents who have been tested for coronavirus and 70,950 have tested negative, according to state Department of Health’s website. The positivity rate is about 45%, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.

Murphy warned again of a possible “boomerang” of the virus if social distancing is lax.

“Let’s only go through this once,” the governor said during his daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton. “We have to keep our foot on the gas. We have to stay at home.”

As of 10:30 p.m. Monday, 8,185 people in New Jersey were hospitalized with COVID-19 or under investigation for it. Of those, 2,051 were in critical care and 1,626 were in ventilators.

That’s a 4% increase in hospitalizations from the day before, Persichilli said.

Between 10 p.m. Sunday and 10 p.m. Monday, 514 patients who were hospitalized with he virus were discharged.

Of the new deaths reported, 27 were residents at longterm care facilities, officials said. The state’s has confirmed coronavirus cases at 342 of 375 longterm care facilities for a total of 5,945 residents.

The partial county-by-county breakdown of cases includes:

Bergen County: 10,426 with 550 deaths

Hudson County: 8,242 with 277 deaths

Essex County: 8,212 with 535 deaths

Union County: 7,265 with 238 deaths

Passaic County: 6,438 with 156 deaths

Middlesex County: 6,313 with 216 deaths

Monmouth County: 4,003 with 145 deaths

Ocean County: 3,833 with 149 deaths

Morris County: 3,424 with 192 deaths

Somerset County: 1,911 with 91 Deaths

Mercer County: 1,731 with 71 deaths

Camden County: 1,477 with 41 deaths

Burlington County: 1,207 with 28 deaths

Gloucester County: 587 with 11 deaths

Sussex County: 535 with 39 deaths

Warren County: 442 with 25 deaths

Hunterdon County: 349 with 11 deaths

Atlantic County: 284 with 11 deaths

Cumberland County: 201 with 3 deaths

Cape May County: 169 with 10 deaths

Salem County: 73 with 4 deaths

Another 1,702 cases and two deaths are still pending investigation to determine where the person resides.

The breakdown of ethnicity among the new deaths:

51.5% white

22.2% black

15.6% Hispanic

5.5% Asian

3.5% other

The breakdown of the pre-existing health conditions for the 2,479 of the state’s 2,805 deaths:

797 (or 61.8%) had cardiovascular disease

482 (37.4%) had diabetes

390 (30.3 %) had other chronic diseases

268 (20.8%) had chronic lung disease

200(15.5%) had chronic renal disease

193 (15%) had a neurological disease

149 (11.6%) had cancer

The percentages won’t add up to 100% because some victims may have had more than one condition.

New Jersey, a state of 9 million residents, continues to have the second-most number of cases and deaths of COVID-19 among U.S. states. Only New York has more of each.

Murphy said Monday the curve of cases in the Garden State is “undeniably now flattening" after weeks of school closings, business closings, and orders for residents to stay at home. But he stressed that cases and deaths are still rising and residents need to continue to stay home.

Officials said Tuesday they’re now predicting New Jersey’s peak in hospitalizations with the virus will hit April 25, with 15,922 patients, including 3,821 in critical care and 3,503 on ventilators.

Murphy also announced Monday that New Jersey is joining six other states — Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — in developing a regional plan regarding how to scale back restrictions and recharge the economy, though only after the states have pushed past the peak of cases.

Despite numbers released on a daily basis, it’s difficult for health officials to get a full picture of how many people in New Jersey currently have the coronavirus or have died from it. That’s because the state is testing only residents showing symptoms of COVID-19, and officials say the backlog of test results is as long as 14 days.

The state is also not reporting significant increases in daily testing, so it’s unclear how quickly the virus is actually spreading.

Murphy defended New Jersey’s testing Tuesday , saying it’s run the fourth most tests of any state, after California, New York, and Florida — which he noted have larger populations.

He also argued that no state has the resources they need to test at the scale they need to test.

“We need help,” the governor said.

As of Tuesday morning, the virus had infected more than 1.9 million people across the globe, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Of those, more than 121,00 have died and more than 465,000 have recovered.

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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01.

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