Murphy pumping $140M to health care industry for COVID-19 efforts
By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
State officials Friday announced nearly 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus and 27 new deaths in New Jersey, boosting the statewide total to at least 8,825 known cases — including at least 108 deaths — as the state continues its efforts to slow the spread of the fast-moving virus.
“We mourn with these families and indeed with our entire state every precious life that has been lost,” Gov. Phil Murphy said at the Trenton War Memorial during his daily coronavirus media briefing. “We can’t bring them back. That is as stark a reality as we have to face.”
New Jersey, which has about 9 million residents, ranks second in the United States in total coronavirus cases, after the neighboring state of New York.
Officials say they expect the number of positive cases to keep rising as testing expands in New Jersey. They say the peak of infections may be three weeks away, but the actual number of cases is likely even higher than the numbers announced Friday, because there’s been a testing lag as long as seven days.
That’s before Murphy issued his most dramatic social-distancing restrictions on residents, including ordering them to stay at home and ordering non-essential businesses closed.
At Friday’s coronavirus briefing, the governor lashed out at people who are getting tested without showing symptoms.
Murphy said it is “useless” and “unnecessary” to test people who are asymptomatic, saying it would “not provide us with the critical data we need to get out in front and stay out in front. We need to know we’re testing the right people and not wasting tests.”
New Jersey’s state laboratory has run 28,043 coronavirus tests since the outbreak started, with 8,296 positive tests — a positive rate of 33.4%, said state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli.
Persichilli said she may have numbers by Monday on how many New Jerseyans with the virus have recovered.
“You have to make an assumption that absent the deaths, everyone else is recovering or on the road to recovery,” she said. She noted that 1,080 residents who have tested positive were hospitalized as of late this week, though many more cases are under investigation.
The latest county-by-county breakdown of cases, according to the state tracking website, shows:
- Bergen County: 1,505 positive cases
- Essex County: 826 positive cases
- Middlesex County: 640 positive cases
- Monmouth County: 634 positive cases
- Hudson County: 594 positive cases
- Union County: 519 positive cases
- Passaic County: 484 positive cases
- Morris County: 391 positive cases
- Somerset County: 222 positive cases
- Mercer County: 131 positive cases
- Camden County: 95 positive cases
- Burlington County: 88 positive cases
- Sussex County: 65 positive cases
- Hunterdon County: 52 positive cases
- Gloucester County: 40 positive cases
- Warren County: 38 positive cases
- Atlantic County: 14 positive cases
- Cumberland County: 9 positive cases
- Cape May County: 7 positive cases
- Salem County: 3 positive cases
Officials also announced Friday that the state-run testing sites at Bergen Community College in Paramus and PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel will go to a new schedule starting Saturday.
On Saturday, both sites will only test health-care workers and first-responders. After that, the sites will run on alternating days for people across the state showing symptoms.
On Sunday, only the Paramus center will be open. On Monday, only the Holmdel center will be open. They each will administer 500 tests a day.
Murphy pumping $140M to health care industry to ramp up COVID-19 efforts
By Daniel J. Munoz, NJBIZ
March 27, 2020 2:39 pm
Gov. Phil Murphy said he’ll pump $140 million into the state’s health care industry in a bid to help ramp up its ability to conduct COVID-19 testing and help treat a potential surge of patients.
“We must ensure their viability to meet the challenge,” Murphy said at daily press conference on the outbreak in Trenton on Friday.
This comes as the total count of positive diagnosis for COVID-19 in New Jersey reaches 8,825, with a death toll of 108 people.
Hospitals and health care providers have become dangerously low on N95 masks, beds, facemasks and most importantly, ventilators.
Businesses and all non-hospital health care facilities are being ordered by Murphy to hand over a list of any such equipment they possess.
The COVID-19 testing centers at Bergen Community College in Paramus and at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel – run by the state government and Federal Emergency Management Agency – have frequently reached capacity less than an hour after opening.
Murphy said Thursday he would expand BCC’s daily test capacity from 350 a day to 500 a day.
In response to a widely anticipated patient surge, the Murphy administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are bringing two decommissioned hospitals back online, one in Woodbury and another in Plainfield.By: Daniel J. Munoz
March 27, 2020 2:39 pm
Gov. Phil Murphy said he’ll pump $140 million into the state’s health care industry in a bid to help ramp up its ability to conduct COVID-19 testing and help treat a potential surge of patients.
“We must ensure their viability to meet the challenge,” Murphy said at daily press conference on the outbreak in Trenton on Friday.
This comes as the total count of positive diagnosis for COVID-19 in New Jersey reaches 8,825, with a death toll of 108 people.
Hospitals and health care providers have become dangerously low on N95 masks, beds, facemasks and most importantly, ventilators.
Businesses and all non-hospital health care facilities are being ordered by Murphy to hand over a list of any such equipment they possess.
The COVID-19 testing centers at Bergen Community College in Paramus and at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel – run by the state government and Federal Emergency Management Agency – have frequently reached capacity less than an hour after opening.
Murphy said Thursday he would expand BCC’s daily test capacity from 350 a day to 500 a day.
In response to a widely anticipated patient surge, the Murphy administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are bringing two decommissioned hospitals back online, one in Woodbury and another in Plainfield.
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