“We’re now well on our way to our next goal of being able to provide at least 20,000 tests a day by the end of the month,” Murphy said.
By the end of June, he predicts, that number will grow to 25,000 per day.
To that end, the state’s Department of Health is set to issue a standing order to expand access to testing without a prescription — for the first time — for asymptomatic people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus but who lack a primary care doctor.
Murphy said the move is particularly important for communities of color, who are disproportionately affected by the public health and economic crises caused by the virus.
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The plan also includes mobile testing units and the addition of testing sites in churches and mosques, the governor said.
To reach vulnerable populations in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, he said, the Department of Health will begin requiring all residents and staff to be tested by May 26, with follow-ups within the following week.
Murphy also announced steps toward building a robust, centralized contact tracing operation, including an executive order requiring all municipal and state health departments to use one common technology platform.
He acknowledged the need to hire hundreds more people to fill out a contact tracing workforce of at least 1,000.
”This will not be cheap,” Murphy said, calling once again for an increase in state and federal resources as well as corporate and philanthropic support.
Colleges will be called on to help find some of those people, and others looking for work will soon be able to step up through the state’s COVID-19 web portal.
Supplying testing materials and paying for contact tracing will have a price tag in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, he predicts.
Even as health officials continue to report slower rates of spread across the state, the count of cases and deaths from the illness is still growing.
Murphy reported 898 new positive COVID-19 test results, and a statewide total of 140,743, as well as 198 more deaths. The virus has now claimed the lives of 9,508 New Jersey residents. Over 14,000 of the positive cases are in South Jersey, with just under 700 deaths.
The number of positive cases and deaths related to nursing homes and long-term care facilities is also still growing, but at a slower rate than in recent weeks.
Camden County wants the state to send monitors to four nursing homes in particular where COVID-19 has become a particular concern.
County Freeholder Lou Cappelli, in a separate online press conference, said inspections ordered by state officials found a what he called “a high percentage” of viral cases and deaths at Avista Healthcare and Premier Cadbury in Cherry Hill, Genesis Elder Care in Voorhees and the United Methodist home in Collingswood.
Cappelli said the state has not responded to the county’s request, but he hopes National Guard members assisting at other long-term care facilities in the state could be brought in to Camden County.
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