What to Know
- On Monday, the state's Commissioner of Health Judith Persichilli revealed there are five new reports of MIS-C since Gov. Phil Murphy's previous press conference held last week.
- According to Persichilli there are 141 cumulative cases in the state. However, the silver lining is that "none of the children are currently hospitalized."
- DOH Medical Director Dr. Edward Lifshitz said it is too early to tell if the latest figures dictate a trend.
New Jersey has experienced the biggest weekly uptick in cases concerning multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in quite some time, according to state officials.
On Monday, the state's Commissioner of Health Judith Persichilli revealed there are five new reports of MIS-C since Gov. Phil Murphy's previous press conference held last week. According to Persichilli there are 141 cumulative cases in the state. However, the silver lining is that "none of the children are currently hospitalized."
Gov. Phil Murphy went on to call the latest number of MIS-C cases as "the biggest jump in a week that we’ve had in quite some time." However, the DOH Medical Director Dr. Edward Lifshitz said it is too early to tell if the latest figures dictate a trend.
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MIS-C CASES
"We get a week-to-week variability just in terms of looking at other things. Certainly we are seeing in percentage of the population more cases in school-aged students than we were before, but their overall case rate is still relatively low compared to where they were a year ago. So must likely this is just random variability and some luck involved," Lifshitz said.
MIS-C is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs, according to the CDC, which also notes that it is currently unknown what causes this illness in children, although it is known " that many children with MIS-C had the virus that causes COVID-19, or had been around someone with COVID-19."
According to CDC, "MIS-C can be serious, even deadly, but most children who were diagnosed with this condition have gotten better with medical care."
According to federal data, as of Nov. 1 there have been 5,526 cases of MIS-C, including 48 deaths, reported in the United States.
As the holiday season is fast approaching, it is important to note that last year, there was an uptick in MIS-C in New Jersey as coronavirus infections dropped significantly among other demographics across the country following the winter holidays.
