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What there is to know
- New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to officially announce new COVID restrictions on Monday following a viral outbreak that saw daily cases increase in early May; hospitalizations tripled in 7 weeks
- New York and Connecticut saw their key metrics increase dramatically; the latter reimposed some capacity caps as of Friday and its governor said Thanksgiving celebrations should be 10 or less
- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Friday he would increase the National Guard’s presence at New York City airports ahead of the holidays to enforce the new entry test requirement as U.S. cases continue to rise unabated.
New Jersey will announce new COVID restrictions on Monday, while New York is expected to establish a new micro-cluster area in the upstate, as governors in both states seek to counter the biggest viral increases they have seen for months.
Gov. Phil Murphy confirmed to CNBC on Monday that “we will take action later today, but it won’t come close to what we were doing in the spring. It’s not a blockage, but it changes our settings to the edges. “
“We have a six-month window, basically, to keep this thing under control,” he said, before the vaccines start to become widely available.
Murphy did not say what the potential new rules might look like or how long they might be in place, although he hinted in an interview with Fox that the state was considering late night dining. bar seating and interstate indoor sports tournaments as potential places to retreat. The governor said the new rules, which he is expected to formally announce during his 1 p.m. briefing, will likely come into effect within days. Outdoor meals and take-out will not be affected, he said.
The changes come as New Jersey saw its COVID-related hospitalizations triple in seven weeks and daily cases peaked in early May. Murphy said last week his team was considering several options with respect to the restrictions – a stance necessitated by a skyrocketing statewide positivity rate that he called “unacceptable.”
New Jersey has reported five consecutive days of more than 2,000 positives for the first time since April, including a day when new diagnoses exceeded 3,200. New Jersey has seen more than a quarter of a million confirmed cases since March .
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy reported another day of new cases exceeding 2,000; the state has reported nearly 6,500 new cases since its last COVID briefing on Monday as its positivity rate soars. NBC New York’s Checkey Beckford reports.
The New Jersey health commissioner said most new cases are not easily attributable to a single exposure and are likely linked to routine gatherings in private homes. Last week, she urged New Jersey residents to wear masks even when they were with their own families – an urgent appeal to prevent the community from spreading.
It may not improve significantly quickly without aggressive action. In New York City, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned on Sunday that the next two months could be some of the worst the country has seen, with numbers spiraling around the world as colder weather looms.
Local metrics also continue to increase in all areas. More than 3,400 new cases of COVID were announced in New York on Sunday, a toll that illustrates the state’s tenuous hold on the progress it has made in the virus’ reign this summer. The total number of hospitalizations peaks in mid-June and is gradually increasing. The daily death toll has grown from low single-digit to low double-digit figures to over 20 in recent days. While this is thankfully below the 800 that would one day die in April, it’s a baffling trend for those watching the numbers closely.
Daily percentage of positive tests by New York region
Governor Andrew Cuomo divides the state into 10 regions for testing and tracks positivity rates to identify potential hot spots. Here is the latest monitoring data by region and for the five boroughs. For the latest county-wide statewide results, click here
Cuomo said weddings, birthdays and other private gatherings have fueled the spread, with more universities and schools opening their doors. In that vein, the governor said on Friday that all SUNY schools would stop in-person learning after Thanksgiving, in an effort to try to contain the spread, and that “exit tests” will be performed for students before they leave for the break. He can apply the same policy to private schools in the state but was not yet ready to do so on Friday.
The governor also said he would beef up the National Guard presence at New York City airports ahead of the holidays to ensure compliance with its new COVID entry testing policy (more on that here). He is expected to outline on Monday a micro-cluster approach to some upstate counties, which have seen their numbers grow faster and faster than those in New York, the former epicenter of the American crisis. Last week, Cuomo established a yellow zone, which imposes weekly random testing of students and staff, but no severe shutdown, in Port Chester.
The quarantine list became unmanageable because most of the US states were on it and what Governor Cuomo did to change the travel rules, reports Adam Harding.
While New York’s numbers have been better than most of the rest of the state in recent times, as Cuomo noted, its population is both larger and denser than other areas, this which means that the spread of the community could lead to a much faster downward spiral. For about a week, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed growing concern over the city’s daily case averages, which surpassed 600 three days last week for the first time in months and ended last week with a report of over 700 new cases. These are all well above the mayor’s threshold of 550 cases.
The seven-day mobile positivity rate, which de Blasio described as the “most objective measure” of the city’s position, has also increased – and hovers on the verge of the 2% threshold he set to consider. suspend meals inside.
By comparison, the moving average in western New York soared to 3.6 percent; the Finger Lakes also have a turnover rate of over 3%. According to Cuomo’s latest report, the statewide average, which has enjoyed a rate below 1% for almost 40 consecutive days over the summer, has climbed to 2% – a high level by recent New York standards, but still remarkably low compared to the country.
The U.S. outbreak, which left no state untouched, also prompted the Connecticut governor to reinstate some capacity and activity restrictions in recent days. Echoing calls from other governors in the tri-state to avoid vacation travel if possible and limit the size of gatherings, Gov. Ned Lamont has asked Connecticut residents to keep Thanksgiving celebrations to 10 people or less. He hopes that limiting the size of family gatherings, even private ones, will limit the spread of the community.
The recent struggles between the three states reflect an alarming trend across the country, which broke its own record for one-day cases four times in four days last week. The United States has now passed 10 million cases, by far the highest total of any country in the world, and has reported more than 239,000 deaths, according to NBC News. It took just 10 days for the United States to go from nine million to 10 million cases, Cuomo said.
“New Yorkers: Wear a mask, walk away and get tested,” the governor tweeted Monday. “The numbers don’t lie and we must all do our part to stop the spread.”
As he begins his transition to the presidency, Joe Biden moves from a bitter electoral battle to a more urgent fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the world’s most powerful nation harder than any other. NBC New York’s Tracie Strahan reports.
Overall, the positivity rates of the three states remain well below the national average. New York oscillates between the second, third or fourth lowest in the country; According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, some states that see the virus spreading rampantly have positivity rates more than 30 times higher.
As President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced a team of experts to begin controlling the raging pandemic, Cuomo expressed concern that things would get worse before the Biden administration took office in January.
“We’re coming to the worst two months, I think we may have seen COVID. You see the numbers going crazy all over this country, all over the world,” Gov. George Stephanopoulos told ABC News. on Sunday. “Scientists said it’s going to happen and you see it in the fall with the cold coming back, and we’re going to have two long months. Unfortunately, the Biden administration doesn’t take office until January 20.”
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