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New Jersey Should Be More Aggressive In Stopping COVID-19 Spread, Epidemiologists Say
By
Nancy Solomon
Published Nov 13, 2020
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By
Nancy Solomon
Published Nov 13, 2020
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With New Jersey’s COVID-19 cases spiking to more than 3,000 new a day, epidemiologists say the state needs to more aggressively clamp down to head off the second wave of the coronavirus.
Governor Phil Murphy has ordered indoor dining and drinking to shut down statewide at 10 p.m. He’s allowing individual towns to decide whether to close all non-essential businesses at 8 p.m. And he’s prohibited interstate travel for youth sports.
But, with the state recording positivity rates in the 8-12% range during the past week, several epidemiologists contacted by Gothamist/WNYC say Murphy isn’t doing enough.
“We’re at a dangerous point where in addition to the colder weather, there are relatively few restrictions and there’s a tremendous sense of COVID fatigue,” said Emily Barrett, a professor in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at Rutgers University.
“This means that more restrictions are needed in terms of indoor dining and bars, gyms, and other indoor social gatherings. If we want to be able to keep schools and essential businesses open this winter, we’ll need to be more vigilant about social distancing and the best way to do that is through changes in our personal behaviors, as well as more stringent statewide policies.”
New data released by the New Jersey Department of Health found that 33% of the new infections in October came from team sports, although the majority of people do not respond or refuse to cooperate with contact tracers. The workplace was another large source of COVID-19 infections according to the state’s data.
“I'm also surprised that we haven't seen more action taken in terms of restrictions,” said Stephanie Silvera, a professor of epidemiology at Montclair State University.
Silvara is particularly concerned about food service workers, who earn low wages and often don’t have health insurance. And she’s worried about Thanksgiving.
“You shouldn't be having indoor gatherings with people,” she said. “People are traveling interstate to be with friends and extended family. That really should not be happening this year because we're going to see cases travel across and create these clusters, either from New Jersey going to other states or in reverse.”
Listen to Nancy Solomon's radio story for WNYC:
The epidemiologists say they don’t personally feel safe spending time indoors with anyone outside their family, whether it’s at home or in a restaurant.
“I think it's really going to be hard to imagine that everyone is going to stay home with their own pod or bubble and not want to get together with Cousin Harry or Uncle Fred,” said Henry Raymond, an epidemiologist at Rutgers University.
Raymond worked for the San Francisco Department of Public Health before becoming a professor, so he says he understands how difficult it is to balance public policy with science.
To gather on the holiday, Raymond recommends taking kids out of school and quarantining the whole family for 10-14 days.
“So that you can have a Thanksgiving that seems normal,” he said. “But if we just keep going forward, we may be risking adding gas to the fire.”
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