Business group says Paycheck Protection Program was too limited, failed to adequately help businesses pay operational expenses so they can reopen and stimulate the economy
Small business owners in New Jersey and other regions hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak are struggling to stay afloat despite a nearly $350 billion lifeline from the federal government.
More money is likely in the offing, but the first wave of funding under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) — part of the CARES Act passed by Congress last month to provide relief during the pandemic for individuals, business and governments — ran out in about two weeks. The taxpayer-funded program, intended for businesses with 500 or less employees, turns federal Small Business Administration loans into grants if companies keep their workers on.
Amid massive demand for the funding, there were also questions about how the program was being administered as chains like Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steak House secured millions in loans, while many truly small companies who sought relief got tangled in red tape. Shake Shack has since returned its $10 million award.
New Jersey now has 5,368 coronavirus deaths as the total number of cases climbed to 99,989 on Thursday, though officials continue to say they are seeing hopeful signs of the outbreak stabilizing.
Gov. Phil Murphy said the latest numbers include about 307 new deaths and 4,227 new cases.
“We continue to see the curve of new COVID-19 cases remain significantly flat, even with today’s slight uptick in cases,” Murphy said. “As we map the outbreak across the state, we continue to see a slowing in the rate of spread.”
Murphy said as the total cases near 100,000, it is important to note that thousands have recovered.
“This is a cumulative number. Our first positive case announced on March 4,” Murphy said. “Of the 100,000 total cases, roughly 46,000 have now exited two-week incubation window. Even as we prepared for tomorrow, there are tens of thousands of residents who have now likely defeated the virus.”
But the latest numbers show New Jersey residents should prepare for the near-lockdown restrictions to continue, Murphy said.
“We can’t ease up one bit on our social distancing,” Murphy said. “We need to see more progress and more slowing.”
Still, it’s difficult to get a complete picture of how many people in New Jersey currently have COVID-19 or how quickly it’s spreading. That’s because the state is testing only symptomatic people, test results has been backed up for up to seven days and the state has not reported significant increases in daily testing.
Murphy has said his administration is paying close attention to the number of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus in New Jersey as key indicator for when the outbreak has slowed. As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, the state reported 7,240 patients at New Jersey’s 71 hospitals, a decline for the third consecutive day and down 12.7% from the peak in hospitalizations of 8,293 patients on April 14. Those numbers include those who tested positive and suspected cases.
Of those 7,240 hospitalized, 1,990 were in critical or intensive care and 1,462 were on ventilators.
The 99,989 positive coronavirus test include 13,769 cases at longterm care facilities.
At least 752 people have been discharged from hospitals in the 24 hours leading to Wednesday night, though information from three of the state’s hospitals was missing from that total.
More than 100,000 residents have tested negative for the coronavirus, according to the state.
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New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks about the coronavirus during a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Albany, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski/Times Union)
ALBANY – As the state nears 20,000 deaths from the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday revealed preliminary results of statewide antibody testing that began this week that indicates 13.9 percent of the 3,000 who gave blood samples had antibodies associated with COVID-19.
The governor said the latest data indicates 2.7 million people have been infected statewide — an infection rate of about 13.9 percent — which means the rate of fatalities from the infectious disease is about 0.5 percent.
“If the infection rate is 13.9 percent, then it changes the theories of what the death rate is if you get infected,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo cautioned the data doesn’t include individuals who may have died at home and were not initially counted as having contracted the illness.
“It also supports the decision that we talked about in having a regional analysis,”
New York City accounted for the highest percentage of those tested with the antibodies at 21.2 percent, according to statistics compiled by the governor’s office. Long Island is the second highest at 16.7 percent. Across upstate, the study indicated that 3.6 percent of the population are carrying the antibodies that may help prevent a person from being reinfected.
New York has been the epicenter for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, accounting for roughly half of all the deaths in the United States. However, in the last week the state crossed its apex and hospitalizations have trended downward, giving hope that a slow reopening of the economy is in sight. Cuomo’s current statewide shutdown order is scheduled to last through May 15.
While the governor initially insisted upon a statewide approach to reopening the economy, he is now amenable to the process being done on a regional basis. Elected officials and residents across upstate have called for communities that have not been hit as hard by the virus to reopen.
Cuomo also announced Thursday that the state is collaborating with Attorney General Letitia James to ensure nursing homes are following all state and federal guidelines for handling cases.
“The state has very strict guidelines on privately run facilities. They get paid to take care of a resident. That resident, that patient, must have a state-directed level of care,” Cuomo said. “If they can’t provide that, they can’t have that resident in their facility.”
Food kits distributed to out-of-work casino employees Wednesday included such non-perishable items as pasta, rice and canned goods. Photo credit: Matthew Strabuck
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — An hour before a planned drive-thru food distribution for out-of-work casino employees was set to open, the line of waiting vehicles snaked around the Harbor Square shopping center and continued on for nearly a mile.
Workers and volunteers from the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, Southern Branch, and Unite Here Local 54 started passing out emergency food kits earlier than the scheduled 10 a.m. start time, as thousands of Atlantic City casino employees continued to show up Wednesday.
By 11 a.m., two 53-foot tractor trailers’ worth of food had been passed out. A third truck pulled in just as the second one was emptied, with hundreds of vehicles still lined up.
“We’re here for our members and our community, and we will continue to be there as long as we are needed,” said Donna DeCaprio, treasurer and financial secretary for Local 54.
The scene in Egg Harbor Township mirrored similar food distribution events throughout the area, as the business restrictions due to COVID-19 continued for a fifth week.
By noon, somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 emergency food kits had been distributed to the unemployed casino workers, said Millie Sanchez, supervisor of mobile food distribution for the food bank.
ATLANTIC CITY — Residents will be able to get tested for the novel coronavirus at either a drive-thru or walk-up site starting Tuesday, city officials said.
The city has partnered with Reliance Medical Group to open two COVID-19 testing sites at Bader Field and the Showboat Hotel Atlantic City. Testing at each site will be conducted two days per week from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for four weeks.
Testing at the sites will be available only to Atlantic City residents who receive a doctor’s prescription and make an appointment on the city’s website.
The first day of testing at the walk-up site, in the Showboat parking lot between Delaware and Maryland avenues, will be for first responders. The following day, qualified residents can begin using the drive-thru site outside Surf Stadium at Bader Field.
Resident testing at the walk-up site will be conducted Tuesdays and Thursdays, while drive-thru testing will take place Wednesdays and Fridays.
“Atlantic City has taken an aggressive approach with the pandemic, since the beginning,” Atlantic City fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Scott Evans said Wednesday afternoon during a video news conference from City Hall. “Conducting testing is a very important, critical piece to help stop the spreading.”
Mayor Marty Small Sr. has been trying to secure a testing location within city limits since last month. He offered Bader Field to both state and county officials as a testing site.
During a tour of the federal government’s field medical station at the Atlantic City Convention Center on Tuesday morning, Small hand-delivered the city’s testing site plans to Gov. Phil Murphy.
“We grabbed the bull by the horns, knowing that the good people of Atlantic City deserve to have their own testing site,” Small said.
Atlantic City received more than $786,000 in grant funding as part of the national coronavirus stimulus. Small said a portion of that grant funding will be used to pay for the testing sites.
To make an appointment at either of the Atlantic City COVID-19 testing sites, visit cityofatlanticcity.org or call 609-318-6990.
New Jersey reported 3,551 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 95,856.
Statewide, 147,850 tests have now been performed and 66,734 have returned positive, for an overall positivity rate of 45.14%.
Hospitalization numbers have remained stable for the last several days, including in intensive care and use of ventilators (above chart):
7,210 people are hospitalized due to COVID-19, a 3% decrease in the growth rate in the past two days,
361 new hospitalizations,
1,983 in critical or intensive care,
1,570 requiring ventilators,
745 COVID patients have been discharged, bringing the total number of patients discharged to 9,692.
84 patients are in the state’s field medical stations.
The last 24 hours saw 314 more deaths, bringing the total of COVID-related fatalities to 5,063. That is second to New York, with more than 19,000 deaths. Nationwide, there have been more than 46,000 deaths.
Racial breakdown of NJ fatalities:
49.3% White
22% African American/Black
17.2% Hispanic/LatinX
5.4% Asian
6.1% other
More than 430 long-term care or assisted living facilities have now reported at least one COVID-19 case.
11,608 residents tested positive.
2,050 deaths related to COVID-19.
At the state’s veterans homes, 183 of 741 residents have tested positive.
80 residents have died.
183 veterans have tested positive for COVID-19.
98 staff have tested positive for COVID-19, no deaths.
Six hospitals required to divert admissions overnight due to capacity, four of them in central New Jersey.
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The coronavirus outbreak in New Jersey increased Monday to 88,806 cases with 4,377 deaths as officials confirmed more than 3,528 new positive tests while expressing hope that increase in cases has continued to slow after aggressive social distancing that has put the state in a near lockdown for weeks.
“It is slowing,” Gov. Phil Murphy said during an afternoon briefing in Trenton. “We have achieved relative stability. We’re now seeing those rates slow. The number of newly hospitalized patients are on a downward trend.”
The latest numbers include 177 additional deaths.
Murphy said the number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus or suspected of being infected has declined and may be a better indication of where New Jersey is in the outbreak, rather than positive tests. The state Department of Health website lists 6,986 people hospitalized at 10 p.m. Sunday, but notes that Holy Name Medical Center, which had 429 patients on Saturday night, is missing from the data.
“The numbers on hospitalizations are a definitive measure,” Murphy said. “This data helps inform our decisions as we look to a re-opening strategy.”
Murphy said he planned to announce in the coming weeks the benchmarks he would use to determine when the state could start to relax the near-lockdown orders enacted to slow the spread of the outbreak.
“We will be careful and we will be strategic,” Murphy said. “New Jersey is not alone in this. Personal health creates economic health. It can’t be the other way around.”
New Jersey has had 161,714 tested for coronavirus to date and 89,251 have tested negative. In addition, 10,744 of the state’s 88,806 positive tests involve residents of long-term care facilities. To date, 1,779 residents of long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19.
The county-by-county breakdown of cases and deaths include:
Bergen County: 12,639 with 767 deaths
Hudson County: 10,486 with 452 deaths
Essex County: 10,304 with 740 deaths
Union County: 9,609 with 372 deaths
Passaic County: 8,288 with 250 deaths
Middlesex County: 8,017 with 329 deaths
Monmouth County: 4,669 with 226 deaths
Ocean County: 4,648 with 217 deaths
Morris County: 4,136 with 257 deaths
Mercer County: 2,395 with 113 deaths
Somerset County: 2,384 with 158 deaths
Camden County: 2,131 with 74 deaths
Burlington County: 1,587 with 58 deaths
Gloucester County: 737 with 24 deaths
Sussex County: 659 with 62 deaths
Warren County: 592 with 44 deaths
Hunterdon County: 407 with 18 deaths
Atlantic County: 398 with 19 deaths
Cumberland County: 308 with 4 deaths
Cape May County: 206 with 14 deaths
Salem County: 116 with 4 deaths
There are another 660 cases and 1 death under investigation to determine where the person resides.
