Emergency department visits declined 42 percent among the nation’s hospitals in the early weeks of the COVID-19 emergency, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those findings mirror reports from New Jersey hospitals.

An early release from CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the study examined a time span from March 29 through April 27. Overall ED visits fell from a mean of 2.1 million per week to 1.2 million, with the steepest decreases in persons under the age of 14, females and the Northeast.