NJ adds Ohio, Michigan, Virginia to COVID quarantine list

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New Jersey, New York and Connecticut on Tuesday added three new states – Ohio, Michigan and Virginia – to a growing list of U.S. states and territories where COVID-19 outbreaks are surging.

There were no states removed under the Tuesday announcement, as vast swathes of the nation experience rebounds of the pandemic. Travelers from any of those states and territories are urged, but not required, to self-quarantine for 14 days.

The self-quarantine recommendation from the three states, among the hardest hit by the pandemic in March and April, applies to any state with a positive test rate of 10 per 100,000 residents or a positivity rate higher than 10 percent, both over a seven-day rolling average.

“As cases have increased within our own state and we work to contain clusters, it is vital to ensure that we are taking all steps necessary to stop the further spread of COVID-19 from out of state,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a Tuesday statement.

The complete list of 38 states and territories are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Murphy warned that New Jersey is “up against” a second wave within its own borders as the virus surges, especially in the ultra-Orthodox community of Lakewood Township.

“Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex, Bergen, Essex, Union, Passaic and Hudson have been the top eight counties now over the past [eight] to 10 days,” he said at an unrelated Tuesday event in Hillsborough.

Last week, the state racked up 1,301 new cases of COVID-19 – a daily count not seen since May – igniting fears that New Jersey could be entering a second wave of outbreaks. The state clocked 991 new cases on Tuesday.

Hospitalizations have soared to more than 600 for the past week in a row – with 649 as of Tuesday – according to the latest data from the state department of health.

“I would say over the past month we have a 100% increase in the number of hospitalizations,” New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said on Monday. “We were averaging about 300, now we’re over 600.”

Nonetheless in September, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, praised how the Murphy administration responded to the COVID-19 pandemic since March, saying the state would be in a position that it could continue with its business reopenings as summer gave way to chillier fall and winter weather, which could force people indoors where the virus could more easily spread between hosts.

State health officials suggested they may employ hyperlocal restrictions in specific communities, rather than at a statewide level to contain the virus. That could mean looking at individual school districts, the closure of local non-essential businesses in hot-spot communities, or restrictions on indoor gatherings such as at synagogues, the governor added.

Many of these recent outbreaks “may be related to gatherings with religious services and celebrations that occurred in late September,” such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah,  Persichilli said last week.