A recent Jersey Shore house party among a group of teenagers may have likely led to roughly 20 people between the ages of 15 and 19 testing positive for COVID-19, state health officials said.

Many of the attendees at the Monmouth County gathering were hesitant to speak with contact tracers, whose job is to identify and isolate potential new cases of the virus, because they took part in underage drinking, Gov. Phil Murphy said on Friday.

That’s causing contact tracers to hit a “brick wall,” the governor said the day before, a particular problem if local and state health officials want to prevent new outbreaks.

“This is not a witch hunt to root out anyone who is underage, although we do not condone underage drinking,” Murphy said at a COVID-19 press briefing Friday afternoon in Trenton.

“Whatever activities these young people may have been engaged in is not everyone’s focus. Stopping a potential outbreak of coronavirus is,” the governor added.

Murphy stressed that cooperating with contact tracers is vital to prevent outbreaks and flare-ups – and that their goal will not be to penalize anyone who engaged in underage drinking.

“The most distressing aspect of this case is learning from trained contact tracers that they have had multiple people refuse to cooperate with them,” Murphy added on Friday.

The gathering was most likely a “house party” in Middletown on July 11, according to a July 22 statement from the township.

On the trail

Murphy assured that contact tracers would ask exposed individuals if they have a safe place in their household to self-isolate. If they don’t, health officials would put them up in a hotel.

They will ask whether an exposed person has any special needs, and access to food for the 14-day self-isolation. They will ask if the exposed person has shown any symptoms of COVID-19, and if they have a private bathroom, and if they have been somewhere where other people could have been exposed to the virus.

“That’s it,” the governor said.

The ability of the state to roll back restrictions, or keep them lifted, depends on tracking down positive cases, and whoever they’ve been in touch with physically that may have been exposed to the virus.

A nationwide strain on COVID-19 testing has made the data increasingly less reliable, as the turnaround for test results amounts to as much as a week.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Friday that the health department is looking at contracting with hospitals and private labs that would identify positive and negative tests, thereby increasing the state’s ability to quickly identify new cases.

And as of Friday, the state has 1,092 contact tracers, Persichilli said. Though she conceded the state could need thousands more.

Since March, the state has logged 178,345 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 15,765 deaths from the virus.