New Jersey's deaths related to coronavirus continued to climb, reaching 27 Monday with seven new deaths, Gov. Phil Murphy said.

Total cases rose to 2,844 with 935 new cases as testing continues to accelerate. New Jersey has the second-largest number of cases in the nation, ahead of California and behind only New York.

Bergen County, which has been hit by far the hardest in New Jersey, now has 585 cases, an increase of 128 from Sunday.

That means Bergen County alone has more cases than many states, including Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Ohio. That is in part because of the aggressive measures to increase testing in New Jersey.

Essex County now has 268 cases, Monmouth has 238, Middlesex has 208, Union has 190, Hudson has 184, Morris has 174, Ocean has 144 and Passaic has 137.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Saturday ordered nearly all residents to stay home and closed nonessential businesses indefinitely to slow the spread of the disease, and state officials took further steps late Sunday and Monday to try to slow the spread.

Murphy reiterated the message Monday for the public to practice social distancing by staying at home, not meeting in groups and keeping 6 feet apart from others in supermarkets and other public spaces.

"Unless you are needed as part of our front-line efforts, please stay home," Murphy said. "Let's all do our part. When we do that, there is nothing that can defeat us."

Among the new deaths were five men and two women, ages 57 to 91. Two had preexisting medical conditions. The deaths included two Bergen County residents, and one each in Essex, Passaic, Union, Warren and Somerset counties. One was associated with a long-term care facility, said state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli.

The Passaic patient who died had "underlying health conditions," said Passaic City Mayor Hector Lora.

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How are NJ hospitals holding up?

At the epicenter is Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. As of Monday, it had 20 patients in the hospital who tested positive for coronavirus, 10 of whom are in the ICU. Another 57 patients are under investigation and awaiting test results.

Since the crisis began, Holy Name has set up tents outside the hospital to test patients as they arrive. Many come with mild symptoms and are never admitted. So far, Holy Name has tested 715 patients and health care workers exposed to people with the virus. Of those, 129 have tested positive, 187 have tested negative and results are pending for 399.

At Hackensack University Medical Center on Monday, there were 70 patients with confirmed coronavirus, and another 62 awaiting test results, said Dr. Daniel Varga, chief physician executive with Hackensack Meridian Health, the system that operates the hospital.

Systemwide among its 17 hospitals in the state, Hackensack Meridian had 164 patients Monday who were positive for the virus, and another 503 awaiting test results.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that any travelers taking flights from New Jersey and New York City to Florida will have to self-isolate for 14 days when they arrive.

Persichilli and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal on Monday issued guidance for how health care workers statewide should safely evaluate patients who may have COVID-19 and how to care for patients who have COVID-19 in an outpatient office setting.

They cited best practices set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as using telephone consults to triage patients before scheduling office visits, wearing appropriate personal protective equipment when evaluating symptomatic patients during in-person visits, and maximizing the delivery of health care services through telemedicine and other alternative methods.

In order to reserve personal protective equipment for health care workers attending to coronavirus patients, Murphy said Monday, he has suspended all elective medical and dental surgeries or procedures statewide.

He said that while New Jersey has been among the most aggressive in testing for the pathogen, "We're going to come to forks in the road between resources dedicated to testing and resources dedicated to care. That's a balance we're going to have to get right."

At some point, the state "may have to tilt the machine more to the care side," Murphy said.

The governor said that in a 10-minute one-on-one call with President Trump on Monday morning, he asked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the state with four pop-up field hospitals, and Trump gave his support.

Murphy said he also asked Trump for more personal protective equipment and for significant federal cash aid to the state. He said that to ensure Trump was aware that New Jersey is acting aggressively on its own to secure vital equipment and "not sitting back with our feet up," he quoted to Trump the motto, "The Lord helps those who help themselves."

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The Newark-based insurance company Prudential Financial donated 153,000 face masks, including 75,000 N95 respirator masks, officials said Monday. The donation also included 300 bottles of hand sanitizer. The state’s Office of Emergency Management sent a truck to Prudential’s headquarters Sunday to pick up 14 pallets of supplies that were stored in the company’s basement.

"Prudential — it was really amazing," state police Superintendent Col. Pat Callahan said Monday. "Yesterday afternoon we had collected all the masks, hand sanitizers and gloves and have it stored in North Jersey."

Goldman Sachs and Home Depot have also made offers to help secure equipment, Murphy said.

"We are clearly going to need these field hospitals," Murphy said.

The state has already been preparing several closed hospitals to make them usable again to add beds for the expected surge in coronavirus patients. Several closed wings of hospitals will also be reopened.

Persichilli said Monday that the state currently has about 2,000 critical care beds and 1,700 ventilators. There should be a ventilator for each critical care bed, so to address the ventilator shortage, the state has asked the federal government for 400 ventilators.

"We do expect with the coming surge in patients we will have to increase our volume of critical care beds and ventilators," Persichilli said.

Cracking down on social distancing

Grewal said the state will be "cracking down" on those who disregard the order to stay at home, as well as businesses taking advantage of the crisis by engaging in price gouging, and those who engage in acts of bias and hate.

"There is a special place in hell for people who take advantage of this crisis," Murphy said.

Grewal said people can be charged with anything from disorderly conduct to second-, third- and fourth-degree indictable charges.

"I guarantee you additional fraud cases are going to come," he said. "We have to remain vigilant."

As other universities have done, Montclair State University Monday said it is postponing its 2020 graduation ceremonies that were scheduled for May.

New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner late Sunday signed an order calling for the temporary release of up to 1,000 inmates serving sentences in county jails, to mitigate the risk of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The order, which formalizes an agreement among the New Jersey Public Defender’s Office, state Attorney General’s Office, County Prosecutors Association and American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, calls for the release no later than 6 a.m. Tuesday of inmates who are serving county jail terms as a condition of probation or as a result of Municipal Court convictions.

No later than noon Thursday, any inmate serving county jail sentences for any other reason, including violations of probation, low-level indictable crimes, disorderly persons and petty disorderly persons offenses, will be released, the order said.

And since frequent hand-washing is a key step to reduce the spread of the virus, the state on Monday asked that every water system, private or public, including those operated by municipal governments, commit to a suspension of any water shutoffs for reasons of nonpayment until the outbreak of COVID-19 has subsided.

Suez, the for-profit water utility that serves Bergen and Hudson counties, has already publicly made that commitment. So have New Jersey American Water, the Newark Water Department and Trenton Water Works.

"Frequent and vigorous hand-washing is critical in limiting the spread of COVID-19, and all New Jerseyans should have confidence that water will be available when they open the tap to wash their hands," Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the state moved to address the worsening shortage of protective gear as hospitals continue to burn through thousands of face masks and gowns a day — 3,000 on Friday alone at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, where 67 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, 24 of them on ventilators. As hospitalizations soar, the need for critical-care nurses also escalated, Holy Name's chief medical officer said.

Pent-up demand for virus testing overwhelmed the Bergen County testing center in Paramus on Monday morning, and it closed even before the official opening time of 8 a.m. A new testing center that opened for the first time Monday at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel also closed within minutes. Passaic County is supposed to open a testing center at William Paterson University by Wednesday.

The glut of new test specimens, however, has delayed test results for hospitalized patients, furthering the drawdown of precious protective gear for medical staff, a Hackensack Meridian Health official said Sunday.