Gov. Murphy To Impose New NJ Restrictions As COVID-19 Cases Spike

NEW JERSEY – Gov. Phil Murphy followed through on his promise on Monday and announced new restrictions now that the second wave of the coronavirus is here.

The Murphy administration says bars and restaurants will soon need to close all indoor service by 10 p.m. Interstate indoor organized sports will also be prohibited indefinitely, according to sources in the Murphy administration.

Restaurants, casinos bars will be prohibited from serving food and alcohol between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. and these new rules will take effect on Thursday morning. Restrictions will also be placed on seating.

Here are more specifics provided by Murphy:

Murphy announced the restrictions, and provided additional details, during his 1 p.m. news conference. You can watch it here:

The news was not warmly embraced by those in the restaurant business:

View this email in your browser

Republican Assemblyman Brian Bergen also questioned Gov. Phil Murphy’s order Monday for restaurants to stop indoor dining by 10 p.m.

“What makes it any more dangerous to eat indoors at 10 p.m. than at 7 p.m.?” asked Bergen, R-Morris. “I would pay to see the data.”

Bergen said that Murphy should not be the sole arbiter of statewide decisions.

“I put a bill up months ago that would require Governor Murphy to involve the legislature in his decision making,” said Bergen. “The majority party refused to hear it and now here we are again with the governor unilaterally picking and choosing which industries to target.”

Murphy made the announcement after New Jersey had more than 5,000 new cases over the weekend, and hit the daily 3,000 case marker for the first time since April.

Murphy announced on Friday that New Jersey will take "broader actions" to quell the recent sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the Garden State.

Murphy said New Jersey will have to consider strong steps now that the state had its fifth consecutive day of reporting 2,000 or more cases — the first time that's happened since April and May.

"Another tough day," Murphy said at the beginning of a news conference that dealt with the state's pending legalization of marijuana.

After months of new daily cases hovering around 300, and hospitalizations also in the low hundreds, New Jersey had 1,300 people hospitalized on Friday, and several counties each had 200 new cases.

Deaths have also ticked up slightly. After falling to single digits — with one fatality reported Oct. 12 — New Jersey reported 13 more deaths Friday.

Murphy once again did not specify what actions he may take, but he did say New Jersey will strike a "balance" between wide-ranging, sweeping steps and "scalpel-like" actions.

"We're working on making sure that we have the right balance between strategic, scalpel-like actions and some broader actions we almost certainly will take sooner or later," Murphy said.

Murphy signaled that he may not take broad actions regarding schools, despite Clifton Public Schools' announcement that it will transition to remote learning Monday after the city said it has 25 new cases. The Clifton School District announced that 12 students and four employees tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, and many others have had to quarantine.

"We deal with these districts one district at a time," Murphy said. "They consult with us every step of the way when they make decisions like that."

Murphy said New Jersey continues to have low numbers of school-related coronavirus cases, noting there have been at least 30 outbreaks in more than 500 districts.

"That's well within any expectation of where we expected to be," he said.

But Murphy said New Jersey will have to take tough steps overall.

"This virus has not gone away as we predicted it would," he said. "We're still in the fight, and we've got to fight back against COVID fatigue. We've got to do everything in our power to fight back against that."

He also issued a warning about Thanksgiving, urging people not to hold family gatherings that could cause the virus to spread.

New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don't miss local and statewide announcements about novel coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.