TRENTON (1010 WINS) – More than half of people reached by New Jersey's coronavirus contact tracers are refusing to cooperate, Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday as he urged residents to "take the damn call" and "work with them."
Murphy started his daily briefing with some good news—the state's Contact Tracing Corps has reached 1,612 members after another 183 members were added to the team this week.
"We're also reporting increases in the percentage of cases being followed up within the first 24 hours," Murphy said. "That's also good news."
"However, more than half of the people our contact tracers are getting in touch with are refusing to cooperate," the governor said. "This is highly disturbing to say the very least. Again, I reiterate, our contact tracers only care about protecting public health. They care about protecting you and your family and your friends. This is not about a witch hunt."
"Please folks, take the damn call," Murphy added. "Work with them. Consider it another piece of personal responsibility we must take to defeat this virus."
At his briefing, Murphy also gave an update on the personal protective equipment the state is stockpiling.
"Building this stockpile is how we've been working to protect against the next wave—please God—or the next pandemic even while we continue to fight this one," he said.
There were another 313 coronavirus cases reported statewide, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 188,817 cases.
The state's positivity rate on Monday was 1.42 percent of people tested. "That's a good number. That's among the lowest in the country," Murphy said.
The statewide rate of transmission was "down a hair" on Wednesday to 1.04. A transmission rate above 1 indicates that for every infected person, the virus is spreading to at least one other person. The rate was last below 1 on Sunday, when it was 0.99.
Murphy said 13 more deaths were reported statewide, including 10 deaths in the past five days. The confirmed death toll is now 14,112, not including 1,829 probable deaths from the virus.
There were 414 patients in hospitals—221 confirmed COVID patients and 193 patients under investigation for COVID. Of those, 61 patients were in intensive care and 30 ventilators were in use.
