Rob Jennings
NJ Advance Media Group
NEWARK, N.J. — A total of 163 law enforcement officers in New Jersey have tested positive for the coronavirus, the New Jersey State Police said on Sunday in retracting a much-higher figure provided a day earlier.
Col. Patrick Callahan, acting superintendent of the State Police, told reporters at a press conference Saturday that about 700 officers had tested positive.
In a statement, the State Police said Callahan had “overstated” the numbers.
However, 1,272 officers in New Jersey are quarantined and 1,435 are “out for other reasons,” State Police said.
New Jersey has about 36,000 full-time officers in the state, according to recent State Police data.
Multiple local police departments, including Jersey City and Newark, as well as the State Police, NJ Transit and Port Authority, have reported officers testing positive for the coronavirus.
Princeton announced on Saturday than an officer had tested positive, six days after noticing symptoms and going into quarantine. It’s the second officer in the department to test positive.
On Sunday, New Jersey reported 2,316 new known cases of the coronavirus, with a statewide total of 13,386 cases, with at least 161 deaths.