It's a milestone to be celebrated.

For the first time in almost a year, there were zero reported in-hospital COVID-19 deaths in New Jersey on Thursday.

Gov. Murphy tweeted out the wonderful news on Friday noting that for the first time since July 30, 2020, there were no reported in-hospital COVID deaths in the state.

"There's only one way to make sure we have more days like yesterday: get vaccinated," tweeted Murphy.

According to Friday's dashboard, however, there were 12 new lab-confirmed deaths in the state bringing the total to 23,730. There were also 309 new COVID-confirmed cases as well, raising the total to 892,308.

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There were 300 COVID-19 related hospitalizations throughout New Jersey hospitals reported on Friday, with 58 in intensive care units and 28 patients on ventilators.

At the height of the pandemic last year, New Jersey hospitals strained to care for thousands of patients each day.

New Jersey reached a high of 410 confirmed and probable COVID-19 deaths reported on April 13, 2020.

The rate of transmission remains the below the benchmark number of 1 — at 0.94, meaning the virus is not spreading rapidly.

More than 4.8 million people who live, work or study in New Jersey have been completely vaccinated against COVID-19, as of Friday's statistics.

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