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Two months ago, North Wildwood motel owners Bill and Kathy Crane were preparing in full force for their 19th season in business. They paid for new carpeting for their motel, The Sandpiper, and were beginning heavy cleaning in the rooms. But as the coronavirus spread throughout the region, the Cranes realized opening would be a problem. On Friday, the pair announced the motel would close for the summer of 2020, citing the health safety concerns of guests and staff. “We get people from all over, New York and Canada,” said Bill Crane. “We couldn’t risk something happening over profit. You...

New Jersey is still “a number of weeks away” from starting to reopen from the near lockdown restrictions to slow the spread the coronavirus, Gov. Phil Murphy said Sunday morning. Murphy also said he is still deciding whether the state will reopen as a whole or whether it could be a regional approach. New Jersey has “suffered an extraordinary toll and loss of life," Murphy said while appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, after the show’s host noted the death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed the combined total number of people in the state who died fighting in Vietnam,...

Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday he’ll give New Jerseyans a “broad blueprint” by the end of the week on how the state will begin to reopen from the near-lockdown orders he put in place to combat to the coronavirus and return to “some new normalcy.” The governor said the announcement won’t include a specific date on when people can expect to have the unprecedented restrictions lifted, but it will include key benchmarks that must be met, including the availability of broader testing. Murphy said during his daily briefing in Trenton he would unveil “principles” that “will guide us ... as...

Gov. Phil Murphy painted a dire outlook for New Jersey public worker jobs on Saturday afternoon, pleading for more financial aid to lift a state economy that has been cratered by the coronavirus. “We will have layoffs that will be historic,” Murphy warned, as he called for Congress to send more direct aid to states, and as he urged state lawmakers to help him borrow billions of dollars. He added that the layoffs would be felt through New Jersey, at the state, county and local levels. “That’s what’s at stake. I don’t know how many, but it is big, big...

Five Catholic schools in southern New Jersey are closing permanently because of financial problems made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, the Diocese of Camden announced Friday. The schools will be shuttered at the end of the academic year, and include Saint Joseph Regional High School in Hammonton, a south Jersey football powerhouse. Together, they educate 745 students, but have seen their enrollment drop significantly in recent years, making them financially unviable, the diocese said. “The decision to close these schools is sobering and painful,” the diocese said in a statement posted on its website. “It has not been made lightly.”...

TRENTON, N.J. – New Jersey residents hoping to emulate anti-‘stay at home‘ protests in other states including Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming and Virginia were thrown a curveball on Thursday when Facebook shut down their event page. The “Open New Jersey” rally – planned for Tuesday, April 28th at the Trenton War Memorial – was informed by Facebook that its event page violated the social media platform’s community standards. Specifically, Facebook warned that it was “coordinating harm and promoting crime.”

New Jersey will likely be under strict social-distancing orders to fight the spread of the coronavirus for the next six weeks before restrictions could begin to be pulled back and some semblance of normalcy returns to day-to-day living, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday evening. Think more like June or July, not May, Murphy said. “I personally think in the warmer weather, we could begin to find our footing, assuming again that we’ve got the health care infrastructure, especially broad-scale testing, that we’re going to need to give us that confidence,” the governor said during an appearance on MSNBC. “I think...

A known Florida scammer is wanted by New Jersey authorities for allegedly calling in thousands of dollars worth of phony pizza orders in the state, claiming the food was being donated to the police, authorities said. Sudeep Khetani, 34, who is believed to be in Orlando, never paid for any of the orders that he placed at several Garden State pizzerias, including in South Brunswick, Montgomery and Plainsboro, according to the South Brunswick Township Police Department.

A week ago, I posted Early Observations on the Pandemic and Population Density, which suggested that the more worrying experience with the COVID-19 virus in the New York City metropolitan area could result from more intense person-to-person contacts: …the risk of infection is a function of being close to people who are infected.The most fundamental issue is thus, how close people are to one-another in their daily lives. The risk of infection can be expected to be higher where there are very high densities whether in residences, transport or employment locations. Jason Fox of Bloomberg, countered that weighted “metropolitan area”...

Murphy said he hopes people "get asked to leave" if they're not wearing a mask or face covering inside a store. But the Murphy administration clarified the rule, saying if somebody enters a supermarket without one, they can still access the store – espcially if there is a medical reason – only the store can limit their time and contact.

If a person declines to wear a mask for medical reasons, the business’ staff can’t ask the person to show medical documentation verifying their condition.

(NJ) Paramus veterans home in crisis mode: 37 people dead in 2 weeks, National Guard deployed

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New Yorkers who die at home are not being tested for COVID-19, even if they had flu- or coronavirus-like symptoms at the time of death, which is likely leading to a massive underreporting of COVID-19 fatalities. ..... A spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office told Gothamist that an additional 200 people are dying at home each day, in addition to the 20 to 25 people that died at home each day before the pandemic.

Gov. Phil Murphy insisted Monday New Jersey residents need to continue to strictly adhere to his orders to stay home and practice social distancing to fight the coronavirus outbreak, but said officials are beginning to see some encouraging news as he offered projection charts for the peak in coronavirus cases for the first time. “What you’re doing is making a difference. We have enough data now to say that comfortably,” Murphy said, while cautioning that any wavering in that effort could produce disastrous results. “We’ll be overwhelmed, like a tsunami,” Murphy said, referencing a worst case scenario. State officials are...

A combination of anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the generic name is Plaquenil, and Azithromycin appear to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. While Dr. Anthony Fauci wants to wait for studies that could take up to a year, there simply isn’t time. Anecdotal evidence from several countries, including China and France, suggest it is effective.

NEW JERSEY, April 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The governor of New Jersey asked citizens to practice “social distancing” — staying away from other people — even while they are at home with their families in order to further combat the coronavirus pandemic. “If you do not need to be out, then we need you to stay at home,” declared Gov. Phil Murphy during a recent press conference. “Please, God, stay at home.” “And even when you are at home, keep your distance between yourself and other family members,” added Murphy. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines...

Governor Murphy signed Executive Order No. 114, ordering the flag of the United States of America and the flag of New Jersey shall be flown at half-staff at all State departments, offices, agencies, and instrumentalities indefinitely, starting on Friday, April 3, 2020, in recognition and mourning of all those who have lost their lives and have been affected by COVID-19.

Gov. Phil Murphy issued a warning Tuesday for residents of “lowest common denominator” states with lax policies and restrictions to address the coronavirus pandemic: You might have to stay away from New Jersey for a while once the outbreak slows here. Murphy said he can’t allow residents from states that “didn’t take this as seriously” and make decisions “not based on science and fact” to “start the fire again” in the Garden State after the outbreak finally dies down. The peak in cases could still be weeks away, health officials have said. “We’re not going to go through this pain...

This is a story about bosses and their workers, in the dark days of COVID-19. It’s also a story about how one good turn deserves another and yet another. And this being New Jersey, it’s also a story about pizza. Bryan Morin and his brother Michael operate Federico’s Pizza in this Jersey Shore town. In the summer, they deliver cheese steak pizzas and 12-inch subs and garlic knots directly to the beach, a few blocks away. In winter, customers flock to the cozy, black-and-white tiled restaurant on Main Street.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s order Monday banning all elective medical procedures in the state includes an “explicit exemption” for aborting unborn babies. While much of the country is focused on saving lives, abortion activists and their political allies are still intent on killing them – even while medical resources are scarce and people are dying from the coronavirus. “Governor Murphy’s executive order exempting abortion during this global pandemic defies logic and is highly irresponsible,” said New Jersey Right to Life Executive Director Marie Tasy. “97% of all abortions are elective procedures and are not medically necessary.” A press release...