New Jersey Deaths From Coronavirus Rise Less Than 10%, But Top 1,000

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey deaths from the new coronavirus topped 1,000, but there were glimmers of hope as the increase was less than 10% for a second straight day.

The number of cases reported also showed positive signs. The increase was about 10% for a second day, down from double that level about a week ago. The curve is “beginning to flatten,” Governor Phil Murphy said, though he said he used the term “beginning” with caution because it’s too early to pronounce a clear trend.

“While we are not anywhere close to being out of the woods as of yet, we are clearly on the right path to get there,” Murphy said Monday at a press briefing. “Our efforts to flatten the curve are starting to pay off.”

Murphy on March 21 ordered the closing of non-essential businesses and told New Jerseyans to stay home and away from one another. He urged residents to stay the course.

“We are now two weeks into our most aggressive push for social distancing,” Murphy said. “But we have to do this. We have no choice.”

If the state continues its stay-at-home practices, “we can get thorugh the peak” with existing hospitals and their re-opened wings, plus three medical field stations operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Murphy said. If the state relaxes social distancing, though, “our health-care system will be overrun with a surge four times what it could be.”

Not There

Even if daily infections and deaths are slowing, the peak remains about a week-and-a-half away, the governor said.

Murphy said the state was getting good leads on personal protection-equipment sources in Israel, Taiwan and China. The state also was promised another 500 ventilators, Murphy said, with 250 arriving today and the rest later in the week. Department of Defense medical personnel are arriving in New Jersey on Tuesday, he said.

The governor said he had just spoken with President Donald Trump, who had agreed to give New Jersey access to some of the 1,000 beds on the Navy hospital ship Comfort that’s docked in the New York Harbor. Murphy said Trump told him that Governor Andrew Cuomo “was aware” and that New Jersey must work out its beds need with Cuomo and federal officials.

New Jersey has the second-highest number of cases in the U.S. after New York, which is seeing some signs of a plateau. As of April 6, the Garden State had 41,090 cases and 1,003 deaths.

“It sucks,” Murphy said of processing the rising number of New Jersey deaths. “It’s incredibly emotional.”

The state has received 20 refrigerator trucks as temporary morgues, according to state police Superintendent Patrick Callahan. The plan was to store as many as 1,680 bodies.

Of the 6,390 Covid-19 patients in New Jersey hospitals, 1,505 are being treated in intensive-care units, state Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said. That’s more than double the number of hospitalized she reported on April 3.

“The next two weeks we will see significant activity in our hospitals,” Persichilli said.

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