New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order on Saturday mandating that all non-essential retail businesses close their stores and almost all state residents stay home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The order affects some 9 million residents in the state and exempts those who work in essential services such as healthcare and the food industry, the governor said at a news conference. The order banned all gatherings including weddings and parties, Murphy said.
‘My job is to make sure we get through this emergency so that you can safely gather with family and friends later,’ Murphy said.
It comes as New Jersey’s top public health official issues a stark warning that she believes ‘we all’ are going to eventually be infected by coronavirus.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order on Saturday mandating that all non-essential retail businesses close their stores and almost all state residents stay home
‘I’m definitely going to get it. We all are. I’m just waiting,’ New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, 71, told a reporter for NJ.com in an interview published on Saturday.
Persichilli said she based her prediction on algorithms that predict the spread of the virus, and that she would most likely suffer a mild case that lasted a few days, as the majority who contract the virus do.
She added that she may not get the virus this month or this year, but that she fears it is coming for everyone.
New Jersey follows four other states – California, New York, Illinois and Connecticut – in issuing a statewide lockdown order, with a total of 80 million people now affected.
The Garden State now has 890 confirmed cases and 11 deaths, making it one of several rapidly growing hotspots across the country.
NJ Department of Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli (above) said of coronavirus, ‘I’m definitely going to get it. We all are. I’m just waiting’
The strict lockdowns now have millions of Americans ordered to stay home, and mandated the closing of all non-essential business, decimating jobs.
An estimated three million Americans will file unemployment claims next week, marking the highest number of new jobless claims ever seen in US history.
Bars, restaurants, stores and casinos lie boarded up across the US as the nation’s once heaving cities have turned into ghost towns after state-wide mandates have ordered one in five Americans to stay at home.
Fears are ramping up around how many Americans will find themselves on the breadline, struggling to survive and feed their families, as President Donald Trump warned that the pandemic is escalating to a level that he may throw the entire nation into lockdown for two weeks.
In the last 24 hours, New Jersey, California, New York, Connecticut and Illinois issued the most extreme measures to date, ordering 100 percent of their non-essential workforces not to go to work.
Health workers perform testing at a new drive-thru coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing center at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey on Friday
The long-term implications are even more concerning, with fears that the US is headed for a recession ramping up.
Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG, warned that the US will turn from ‘the best economy in history to the worst economy in history in not even two months’ if the shutdown situation continues.
‘Get out, get out while you can before they shutter the whole darn United States. A stunning reversal of fortune for the best economy in history to the worst economy in history in not even two months. The fastest recession in history. With no one spending a dime, it will stay that way a long, long time,’ Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG told The Hour.
‘We are looking at something quite grave,’ added economist Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair.
New Jersey Army National Guard Pvt. Bethanie Keir, a soldier with the 508th Military Police Company, puts on her protective mask at a COVID-19 Community-Based Testing Site at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey on Friday
‘If businesses suffer such serious losses and are forced to fire workers and have their firms go into bankruptcy, it may not be easy to pull out of that.’
This grave warnings fly in the face of Donald Trump’s continued optimism over the crisis.
The president made the bold claim that the economy would be ‘come back really fast’ like a ‘rocket ship’ in a press conference on Thursday.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for benefits, a good proxy for layoffs, had already surged by 70,000 to 281,000 claims last week.