Murphy to limit outdoor gatherings to 25 people as COVID surges

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Outdoor gatherings will be limited to 25 people and indoor high school sports competitions will be banned, as part of a new round of restrictions Gov. Phil Murphy will announce at noon Monday to control the second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks.

Gatherings are currently limited to 150 people, with an exemption for political and religious events.

The new restrictions will go into effect at 6 a.m. on Dec. 7, while indoor competitions will be on pause through Jan. 2, according to a senior administration official, and a report this morning from NJ Advance Media. Outdoor gatherings were previously capped at 500 people.

While the new restrictions have been only a slither of what they were during the first wave between March and May, the governor warned over the weekend that a total state shutdown still needs to be “on the table.”

“In terms of a shutdown, I don’t anticipate it, and I sure as heck don’t want to go that route,” the governor said during a weekend interview with Fox News Sunday.

Restrictions have been light compared to the spring: the governor ordered indoor dining to cease operations at 10 p.m., while barside seating is banned entirely. And he allowed local towns to enact tighter restrictions – Newark has enacted virtual citywide lockdowns that in effect through Dec. 4.

But Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned that the United States may see a “surge upon a surge” – that is, a spike in new outbreaks stemming from Thanksgiving travel, and on top of the nationwide second wave.

“So clearly in the next few weeks, we’re going to have the same sort of thing. And perhaps even two or three weeks down the line… we may see a surge upon a surge,” Fauci told ABC’s “This Week” over the weekend.

The state logged more than 4,000 new daily cases for several days in a row over the course of the past month, at times reaching an all-time record high. Over a week ago, New Jersey pushed past 300,000 total cases since the first COVID-19 patient tested positive on March 4.

Ramped up testing capacity has meant that more people would inevitably be tested and diagnosed, and that’s been evidenced by a sluggish positivity rate among tests, which for weeks has mostly stayed below double digits. It was 10.35% as of Nov. 25.

But Murphy and other state health officials have warned that other metrics used to gauge whether the virus is spreading are also heading in a worrying direction.

That’s meant the highest numbers in months for hospitalizations, critical care patients, daily fatalities and ventilator-usage. As of Sunday, the state had 2,961 total COVID-19 hospitalizations, 332 patients on ventilators and 575 critical care patients.