New Jersey health officials are deploying so-called “hotspot teams” to contain outbreaks of COVID-19 in towns and cities across the state, using what they’re calling the “Lakewood model.”

State health officials named it so for the ultra-Orthodox, Jewish-majority township in Ocean County where late September surges drew up the positivity rate among tests to 36%. Now the rate is less than 6%, according to New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, so the model is being deployed in Newark, where the positivity rate sits at roughly 11%.

The “Lakewood model” entails “plussing [sic] up testing, plussing up tracing, plussing up our bullhorn and in Newark’s case in Portuguese,” Gov. Phil Murphy said at a virtually-held COVID-19 press briefing on Thursday. “That combination feels like we can play elsewhere.”

In Newark, the city itself enacted a litany of restrictions, like a curfew for restaurants and other businesses. Mayor Ras Baraka said the restrictions will be reassessed on Nov. 10 to see whether they’re effective in stymieing the outbreak, or if they need to be tightened.

Gov. Phil Murphy has frequently alluded to “scalpel” restrictions rather than a “blunt statewide instrument” of restrictions to contain new outbreaks, and suggested that Newark’s actions were a step in that direction.

“These are literally steps at the edges that the mayor took, which we think are smart steps, but are not counter to our executive orders,” he said on Monday.

Data from the New Jersey Department of Health presented on Thursday show the state logged 1,477 overnight cases of COVID-19; 241 out of Essex County, which Murphy said “remains our biggest concern.”

Local modeling

Persichilli said that the state saw a great deal of success by partnering with local health officials, local leadership and heads of the Jewish community in Lakewood. For example, test sites were set up at some of the township’s Yeshivas.

“The department has worked with the local community and religious leaders to increase public message and raise awareness of the importance of public health preventative” measures, Persichilli said.

That dramatically drove down the township’s positivity rate, according to Persichilli.

Data from Thursday show that Ocean County came in at 10th place in terms of new daily cases, compared to its first place ranking for several consecutive days earlier in the month.

Roughly two dozen contact tracers were deployed to Lakewood to track down and isolate potential cases of COVID-19, and a similar number of tracers are setting their sights on Newark.

“When we all work together, wearing masks, social distancing, washing your hands frequently, staying home when you are sick, getting tested, answering the call … we can beat this virus,” she added.