Intensive care bed usage in Monmouth County hospitals rose to 60 Monday, the highest level since May, while hospitalizations for COVID-19 declined to 418, from 446 a week earlier, the freeholders reported. (Monmouth County data. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

With an historic rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccine about to begin in New Jersey, “the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter,” Governor Phil Murphy said Monday.

At the same time, hospitals statewide and in Monmouth County are treating rising numbers of patients who need intensive care and ventilators because of the coronavirus, data show.

Statewide, both ICU admissions, above, and ventilator use, below, were at second-wave highs Sunday. (New Jersey Health Department graphics as of December 13. Click to enlarge.)

“We are also in for several hard months, I’d say, especially the next six to eight weeks,” Murphy said at a briefing on the pandemic Monday. “As vaccinations move forward, we are going to be facing stiff headwinds from the second wave” of infections.

As reported Monday, frontline healthcare employees of Hackensack Meridian Health, the parent company of Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center, will begin receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Tuesday.

Statewide, hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been rising rapidly since early October, according to New Jersey Health Department data.

Monmouth County freeholders, in a periodic report on local hospital utilization Monday, said Monday that 418 patients were hospitalized, 79 in intensive care and 60 on ventilators due to COVID-19.

They also reported one additional death, for a total of 846 county residents killed since the pandemic began in March.

County officials also reported these cumulative cases by town:

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