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With one child in high school and another about to graduate college, the governor said he understands the angst parents are feeling.
“It’s hard, but if we all keep pulling and working together, I hope that it will put me in a position in a month’s time to make a different announcement,” he added.
Murphy ordered the state's more than 600 school districts to close last month as part of an effort to halt the spread of the virus.
Neighboring Pennsylvania has closed schools through the rest of the year.
New cases and deaths
The New Jersey Department of Health has reported an additional 4,391 cases of COVID-19 since Wednesday. At last count, 75,317 New Jersey residents have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Just in South Jersey, the numbers stand at more than 4,500 cases and 160 deaths.
"All of a sudden, social distancing doesn’t seem so much of an inconvenience if it means that we don’t have to keep mourning so many blessed souls," the governor said.
As of Wednesday night, he said, 8,224 residents have been hospitalized, with 2,014 of them in critical or intensive care. And 46 patients are at one of the state's field medical stations.
Murphy said 1,645 of those individuals were on ventilators. And he noted that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has directed the state to send 100 more ventilators to New Jersey medical centers.
Despite the growing number of positive tests and a surging death toll, Murphy said social distancing efforts “are working.” As evidence, he said that the rate the number of cases doubles has been going up across the state from about every three days to seven days.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in a couple of weeks. Older adults and people with existing health problems are at higher risk of more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
Other developments
Murphy announced his picks to serve as health and economic representatives in a seven-state consortium looking to coordinate future pandemic responses.
Police responding to an anonymous tip found more than a dozen bodies at a nursing home in northwestern New Jersey, according to news reports.
Five bodies were found Sunday and 13 more were found on Monday at the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, Andover Township Police Chief Eric Danielson told The New Jersey Herald.
The remains found at the facility were among 68 deaths linked to the home, including both residents and two nurses, The New York Times reported, citing Danielson, other officials and county records shared with a federal official. At least 26 of those deaths were confirmed by laboratory tests to be related to COVID-19, the newspaper said.
Police released a photo of a box truck parked outside the home that was being used to store the bodies after a hazmat team removed them.
More than 100 residents and staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the Times reported.
The coronavirus has spread quickly through nursing homes around the country, leading to pressure on federal health officials to publicly track COVID-19 infections and deaths. In New Jersey, 471 residents of long-term care facilities have died, and 358 of the state's 375 facilities have reported positive cases, according to state health officials.
Since last month, the state has banned visitation, ordered universal masking and required that all facilities notify residents, family and staff of any outbreaks.
Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said this week that 123 facilities have been prohibited from admitting patients because they haven't demonstrated they can effectively segregate COVID-19-infected residents from those who aren't infected.
Persichilli said that in the last week, the state had distributed more than 100,000 N95 masks, nearly 700,000 surgical masks, 7,000 face shields and more than 700,000 gloves to long-term facilities.
Still, state health officials have declined to name nursing homes where residents have died, with one exception last month when they ordered the closure of St. Joseph's Senior Home in Woodbridge after staff illnesses left the facility unable to care for residents. More than 90 residents were moved to another facility.
Unemployment
Unemployment claims in New Jersey fell by 34% last week, the state Labor Department said Thursday, but they were still much higher than before the governor's stay-at-home order went into effect on March 21.
The economic fallout stems from the coronavirus outbreak that has led officials to shutter schools and businesses.
More than 140,000 people sought jobless benefits last week, the department said. That's down from about 215,000 the week before, compared with roughly 8,000 applications in the first week of March.
The jobless claims filed during the outbreak have shattered previous high water marks set after Superstorm Sandy, when single-week claims reached 46,000.
Over six weeks beginning in early March, the state has paid about $425 million unemployment benefits, according to the Labor Department. The state's unemployment trust fund had about $3 billion, according to the department's report to the Legislature last year.
Reopening council
Former Obama administration Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Dr. Richard Besser will serve on the multi-state council to reopen the region's economies, Murphy said.
Johnson headed Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017 under Barack Obama.
Besser is a medical doctor and the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Murphy and other governors on the East Coast have said they'll work together to restart their economies after the outbreak, but they haven't given a timeline.
100 ventilators from New York
New Jersey is currently using about 1,600 ventilators, or 56% of its statewide capacity.
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