Gov. Phil Murphy speaks during a news conference in Ewing, N.J. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo Murphy: New York is the ‘canary in the coal mine’ and we’re right behind

New Jersey officials have been slow to set an exact timeline for when they project the state’s already overburdened health system will experience a surge in coronavirus-related hospitalizations.

But with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tallying his daily case count in the thousands, New Jersey may not be far behind, Gov. Phil Murphy said during his daily press briefing on Wednesday.


“[New York’s the] canary in the coal mine,” Murphy said, echoing Cuomo’s comments from Tuesday. The New Jersey governor, himself is immunocompromised after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his left kidney earlier this month, quickly added: “I think we’re right behind him [Cuomo], unfortunately.”

On Wednesday, New Jersey officials announced 736 new coronavirus cases, bringing the state’s total of known cases to 4,402 since the first patient tested positive in Bergen County in early March. Another 18 patients with Covid-19 have died, bringing the total statewide to 62.

Though the New Jersey totals pale in comparison to those in New York, where there are 30,811 known cases, including 17,856 in New York City, the Garden State has the second highest number of cases in the nation. New Jersey’s proximity and shared transportation network with New York City contributed to the virus’ spread through its northern counties in the early days of the pandemic.

Many of New Jersey’s earliest cases in Bergen County were traced to contacts in New York City and Westchester County. One of New Jersey’s first steps after the virus was identified in a Bergen County resident on March 4 was to suspend work-related travel out-of-state, including to New York.

“We’re in the broad definition of metro New York. We’re living it,” Murphy said Wednesday, commenting on recent federal guidance for those traveling from the city’s metro area to self-isolate. “We’re on a different side of the river, but the same bucket.”

While New Jersey officials haven’t offered specific guidance on when a surge could occur, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said she believes it could happen as soon as 21 days from now — the outer bound of Cuomo’s projection — or as far away as two months.

“We’ll have something for you very quickly on that,” she said, later adding that while projections are good, she’s more concerned with what she’s hearing from health care workers on the ground. “We’re also seeing some strain in the northern counties, particularly around critical care.”

Murphy said he believed the state’s 18,000-plus acute care beds and 2,000 critical care beds were well equipped to handle the existing case load.

But the goal over the next several weeks is to increase capacity by around 2,360 beds through the reopening of closed hospitals, the rehabilitation of shuttered wings in existing medical centers and the construction of four “pop-up” hospitals throughout the state in coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The first pop-up site will be at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. Others will open at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison and the Atlantic City Convention Center. The site of the fourth hospital is still being determined.

“It is my fervent hope that these preparedness measures remain just that, measures of preparedness,” Murphy said. “No one would be happier if we over prepared. … That would be the best mistake we’ve ever made.”

The governor again hinted the state may soon redirect resources, including personal protective equipment and health care workers, from ongoing efforts to expand coronavirus testing to overwhelmed health systems.

The need for PPE and critical supplies, particularly ventilators, is already becoming dire at health systems in northern parts of the state.

CarePoint Health, which operates three hospitals in Hudson County, is already on the verge of running out of ventilators as more patients walk in experiencing respiratory distress, including those who’d previously been sent home to self-quarantine, Dr. Vijayant Singh, the chief hospital executive at Bayonne Medical Center, told POLITICO on Wednesday.

In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Atlantic Health CEO Brian Gragnolati — whose health system primarily operates out of Morris County — said the system’s seven hospitals had around 200 patients receiving inpatient care for the coronavirus, or a suspected case of it, and that his team is projecting that total to double every three days.

Some Bergen County facilities, namely The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, are already short of supplies, according to multiple reports.

“There are no supplies,” Dr. Alexander Salerno, a physician in Essex County, told POLITICO late Tuesday. “You have to make do with what you can.”

The state has been soliciting donations from private entities. Merck & Co. said it would contribute 300,000 masks to New Jersey, Murphy said. The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers of New Jersey contributed masks to Burlington County facilities. Prudential Financial donated in 153,000 masks, plus hand sanitizer, that was distributed across the state earlier this week.

“When we see this peak in New York, I think we can expect Bergen, Essex and Hudson counties will follow the trend,” Persichilli said. “We expect that all of our mitigation strategies will reduce the impact on our state but, as the governor has shared, we must be prepared.”