From NJ Spotlight

• The worrisome rise in COVID measures continued today, with more than 2,000 new positive tests results reported among state residents — a mark that hasn’t been seen since early May and is a little less than half the all-time high for the pandemic.
  • It was also a third straight day when more than 1,000 patients were being treated for COVID-19 at hospitals in New Jersey.
  • Elevated daily case counts were seen across the state, with four northeastern counties reporting more than 200 positive tests results, and five others each seeing in excess of 100.
     
• Gov. Phil Murphy today called the latest statistics “sobering,” and again raised the possibility of statewide restrictions on business and other activities if the current strategy of appealing to residents to take the necessary safety steps and avoid private indoor gatherings is not successful.
  • During a Friday morning interview on CNN, the governor was asked if he would consider a statewide curfew similar to what’s in place in Newark, where all businesses must close at 8 p.m.: “If we had to,” he said. “I just hope we don’t have to.”
  • Murphy said state officials were now relying on a localized, or “scalpel,” approach — deploying team, testing capacity and contact tracers to places like Newark where case numbers were spiking.
  • The governor has repeatedly said that officials don’t believe that the public activities now allowed, like indoor dining, are responsible for the outbreaks. “A lot of the cases are coming from private homes, private