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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy joined “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Thursday to discuss his decision to reopen the state’s beaches, as well as his administration’s ongoing coronavirus response.
“We’re going to try to limit, intelligently, capacities and [enforce] social distancing [on beaches], but we’ll leave it to the communities themselves to actually do the on the ground management of that,” Murphy said. “Folks want to let off steam. Our curve’s going in the right direction, [but] we’re not out of the woods yet. We opened our parks, and [t]his is another big step … New Jersey has been extraordinary complying with all these policies, and I fully expect folks will continue to do so.”
MacCallum asked Murphy about the state’s stay-at-home order and the perception that lockdowns will be enforced until a vaccine becomes widely available.
“We’ve never said ‘You got to stay home until there’s a vaccine.’ I wish there was a vaccine tomorrow. I’m sure you do as well,” Murphy responded. “Our curves have gotten meaningfully better, [there are] less hospitalizations, less ICU beds, [fewer] ventilators. The reproduction of the virus is way down in New Jersey, no question. But we are still the number one state in America per capita [in terms] of positive tests, hospitalizations, fatalities. So it’s a balancing act.”
McCallum asked Murphy if, in retrospect, authorities had overreacted to the virus, to which Murphy said he “resoundingly would say no.”
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“That does not mean that I don’t appreciate the enormity of the economic hit, the unemployed, the [effect on] small businesses, because it has been without question, historical,” the governor added. “But we believe completely, public health creates economic health.
“And if you transpose those or if you jump the gun, not only will we have an ongoing public health challenge, we’ll have an even bigger economic crisis,” Murphy added.
