New Jersey has ordered 20 refrigerated trucks capable of storing 1,680 bodies to take the stress off morgues and funeral homes as the fight against the coronavirus continues with the projected peak in cases at least 10 days away, officials said Monday.

Acting State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan made the announcement as New Jersey passed 1,000 deaths in the outbreak. The news came less than a week after officials said they planned to ask for the trucks.

“I don’t have a specific day, but soon," Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday when asked if they would be needed and asked for from the federal government.

Murphy announced Monday New Jersey’s deaths from the coronavirus increased to 1,003 as health officials announced the total COVID-19 positive tests jumped to at least 41,090.

The governor said on Sunday the state is set to receive another 500 much-needed ventilators from the national stockpile to treat people.

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The new shipment means the state has or will receive 1,350 of the ventilators Murphy has asked President Donald Trump to send to New Jersey. Several of the machines from the federal government, however, weren’t working properly upon arrival and required repair.

As of Monday morning, New Jersey had 6,390 patients in hospital with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said. Of those, 1,505 were in intensive care, she said.

Officials said the state’s first pop-up field hospital to help handle an overflow of patients is set to open Monday at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus. The first patients could start arriving within days.

The federal government is helping build two other field hospitals in the state. One is set to open April 8 at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison and another April 14 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, officials said.

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