The number of people in New Jersey with coronavirus infections climbed to 23 on Wednesday, a day after the state's first death from the virus. It's been just one week since the first patient in New Jersey was diagnosed with the disease.

State officials reported the first signs that the illness may be spreading broadly in the community, noting that two of the most recent patients to be identified had no connections to any known sources of exposure.

All of the eight new cases are in hospitals, Gov. Phil Murphy said. Four are in Bergen County, two in Middlesex and two in Monmouth counties.

The rise in New Jersey cases came as World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, with the global death toll above 4,300 and the number of confirmed cases exceeding 120,000.

Murphy, who is anticipating returning soon to a public schedule of events after kidney surgery, said the state has been preparing for weeks to deal with the coronavirus but that it’s hard to tell just how widespread it could get. But it is a foremost concern of his administration, he said.

“My guess is it gets worse before it gets better. And that’s not just a statement about New Jersey. That’s a statement about America and the world,” Murphy said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We have been preparing for that, and we just have to continue to do what we can to stay out ahead of that.”

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Still, he cautioned, “All of us need to think through being in big gatherings in close proximity with other people.”

New coronavirus cases

Three of the new patients are women and five are men. They range in age from 17 to 66, Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.

Two of the patients had no prior exposure to someone known to have coronavirus and did not travel from an area with community spread, she said. "We will be putting them under further investigation," she said.

Widespread transmission of the disease had been expected, but the goal is to slow it and blunt its impact so that hospitals are not overwhelmed by a surge in demand for services.

"If a surge occurs, which we expect it may, I think we will be certainly constrained in our availability of supplies" of personal protective equipment for health care workers, Persichilli said. State hospitals have around 700 rooms with negative air pressure, which are used to prevent the release of potentially contaminated air to the rest of the hospital.

New Jersey will receive $13.8 million in additional funds from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help stop the spread of coronavirus, the White House said.

The state public health laboratory is in the process of testing 37 more people for the virus. Among those, 20 tests are underway and the state lab is awaiting samples from the others. The state is adding staff and equipment to the lab to be able to do more tests, Persichilli said.

Results from the state laboratory are "presumed positive" until the CDC lab in Atlanta confirms them.

"The current risk for the general public is still low," said Dr. Christina Tan, the state epidemiologist. However, those who have contact with communities with clusters of cases, as well as those who are elderly or have underlying medical conditions, are at greater risk.

What to know about the spread of COVID-19

While the flu and pneumonia have killed more than 1,100 people in New Jersey since October, there is a vaccine for flu. There is no vaccine or approved treatment for coronavirus so far, and it will take more than a year for one to become available.

As the disease spreads widely in the population, that could lead to a high number of patients requiring hospitalization for pneumonia or acute lung problems that require the use of a ventilator to breathe, as well as death. One of the most vulnerable groups is people in nursing homes.

State health officials are advising long-term care facilities to restrict all visitors except those for patients in hospice. Children in long-term care and patients in psychiatric hospitals are no longer to leave the facilities for school or outside activities, to avoid contracting coronavirus and introducing it into their residences.

Hospitals, too, have adopted stricter visitor restrictions. Guidelines developed by the state hospital association call for limiting visitors to two at a time, barring children younger than 12 from visiting, and prohibiting visitors with cold or flu symptoms, a recent travel history to affected countries or any contact with a COVID-19-infected person.

Many public events are being canceled, from the Ivy League college basketball postseason tournament to local St. Patrick's Day parades, to heed the call to avoid large gatherings.

The St. Patrick's Day parade in Morristown, for instance, considered the state's largest and often attracting 50,000 people, is among those canceled. It will be rescheduled for September.

In New York State on Wednesday, the National Guard was preparing to deploy to Westchester County, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a containment zone in parts of New Rochelle that are at the epicenter of that state's outbreak. The National Guard is tasked with helping clean and disinfect the zone.

As health care institutions, schools, workplaces and senior centers changed routines in an intensive effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, lives were disrupted across the region. Supplies of face masks and hand sanitizer disappeared off store shelves, and officials warned against price-gouging and threatened severe action.

New York, New Jersey and Bergen County now are operating under states of emergency, which gives their leaders more flexibility to waive rules and allocate resources to grapple with the public health crisis.

Testing for the virus is still limited, as commercial laboratories scale up their capacity. Only doctors or hospitals can request testing for patients, and they have been advised to use federal guidelines that recommend testing only symptomatic individuals with known exposure to the virus.

The shortage means that the full extent of the epidemic is unknown. Nationwide, at least 1,000 people have tested positive in 37 states and 31 have died. "Around 20" additional cases have been diagnosed in New York in the past 24 hours, Cuomo said.

Meanwhile, the intense effort to contain the virus proceeded as local public health officials interviewed those with confirmed infections about their close contacts, so those exposed could be told to self-quarantine and monitor for symptoms.

Several of the New Jersey patients have links to the cluster of more than 100 cases in Westchester County. Others attended medical conferences in Boston and New York. And an Englewood man who tested positive had attended a conservative political conference in Maryland, leading four members of Congress who encountered him there to quarantine themselves.

Among the previously identified cases, seven patients lived in Bergen County, two in Monmouth, two in Burlington and one each in Passaic, Hudson, Camden and Union. The youngest is 17 and the oldest is 83. Three are recovering at home, one is in intensive care and one has died.

New Jersey's first patient to die from COVID-19, as the disease is called, was a Little Ferry man who owned and trained horses and spent time in the paddock at Yonkers Raceway. John Brennan, 69, had a number of chronic conditions, including emphysema, hypertension and diabetes, that made him more vulnerable to the disease. He was unmarried, and his family members were cooperating with officials in their investigation.

The other cases included a Burlington County couple, ages 62 and 60, who returned earlier this month from a vacation in Italy and had been in self-quarantine since then. They were tested when they developed symptoms.

And a 32-year-old physician's assistant, with an apartment in Fort Lee as well as New York, remains in Hackensack University Medical Center. He was the first person to be diagnosed in New Jersey, just one week ago.

Many universities have announced a switch to online classes and extended their spring breaks. Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University joined the list for online learning Wednesday. Rutgers University canceled classed starting Thursday, with instruction to be delivered remotely after the end of spring break on March 22. Seton Hall University in South Orange decided to suspend all in-person classes beginning on Wednesday, and classes will be online through at least March 22.

Many observances of the Jewish festival of Purim were either canceled this year or greatly reduced in size because of the virus.

With the state of emergency in Bergen County, senior citizens considered to be at higher risk — because of underlying medical conditions or age over 80 — were advised to stop attending senior centers. County Executive Jim Tedesco said arrangements would be made to deliver meals to those who relied on the centers for lunch.

Tedesco also said that all county-operated senior activity centers will be closed effective Wednesday at 5 p.m. until further notice.

The Fort Lee senior center on Main Street said it would close for 14 days, starting Thursday, as a preemptive measure.

Some stores have started to limit how many of certain items customers can buy. At a Home Depot in Montville, a sign said packs of sanitary wipes were limited to two per customers.

And ShopRite sent a message to customers that said in part, "We are starting to experience short supplies on products that are in high demand during this time. As a result, we’ve placed purchase limits on items such as disinfectant cleaners and wipes, bar and liquid soaps, water, cough/cold over the counter medicines and other key categories.

"We’re working with our suppliers to keep these items on the shelf for you and we appreciate your cooperation in limiting your purchases to four so that everyone can get the products they need," the statement said.

The state attorney general said inspectors from the state Consumer Affairs Division were on the alert for merchants who seek to exploit the situation. “Retailers who try to make a quick buck by exploiting others will face civil and criminal consequences,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said.

A convenience store owner in River Vale who allegedly made a concoction of industrial cleanser and water and repackaged it for sale as “spray sanitizer” was charged with various counts of endangering the welfare of a child and deceptive business practices, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said Tuesday. Four young boys were burned as a result of using the spray, which had been purchased at the River Vale 7-Eleven, the Prosecutor’s Office said.