Governor Murphy Extends New Jersey’s Public Health Emergency Through Early June
New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy announced that he has extended the state's public health emergency order through early June.
The executive order, which was signed on Wednesday, extends the state's initial order (first declared in March) by another 30 days.
Murphy emphasized that the state's road to recovery would continue, and insisted that the declaration (unless extended) expire after 30 days, so some of it appears to be a formality at this point.
"I want to make it absolutely clear that this action does not mean that we are seeing anything in the data which would pause our path forward and it should not be interpreted by anyone to mean we are going to be tightening any of the restrictions currently in place,” Murphy said at his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton.
The governor also called on the state's residents to continue practicing social distancing.
“If this extension signals one thing, it is this, we can’t give up one bit on the one thing that we know is working in this fight: social distancing," the governor said. "Remember, in the absence of a vaccine, or even proven therapeutics for COVID-19, our only cure is social distancing."
During the press conference, the state announced an additional 1,513 coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing the statewide total to 131,890. There were another 308 coronavirus-related deaths, raising the death toll to 8,549. However, there encouraging numbers in terms of the number of hospitalizations, discharges, and the number of patients on a ventilator at this time.
"While these numbers are pointing us in the right direction, they still mean that thousands of our fellow New Jerseyans are still in the hospital battling #COVID19. This is why I needed to extend the public health emergency," Murphy wrote on Facebook.