New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday that the state was starting to see positive signs that its social distancing policies were helping to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
"Too early to tell, but we are seeing the positive cases that are coming out each day continue to show a little bit of a sign of flattening, and that's a good thing. And then we went through some modeling today, and the good news is that we don't have the runaway freight train catastrophe that we would have had if we had done nothing," Murphy said on "Fast Money."
New Jersey had more than 41,000 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 1,000 deaths as of Monday afternoon, according to the state's website. That represented an increase of 3,663 cases from the day before, slightly more than the increase reported on Sunday but below the number of new cases reported on Saturday.Â
Even though the growth in cases does not appear to be accelerating, New Jersey is still short on medical equipment, including ventilators, Murphy said.Â
"Even that number, unless we stay on that and stay even more aggressive, will swamp our health-care system," Murphy said.Â
Murphy first issued a stay-at-home order for the state on March 21. He said travel between New York City and New Jersey is "overwhelmingly" only essential workers at this point and that he is working with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the governors of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Even though recent numbers show the spread of the virus may have slowed, Murphy said he doesn't want to reopen nonessential businesses too quickly and expects social distancing measures to stay in place for at least another month.
"I see nothing that doesn't say we aren't in this at least deep until May," Murphy said.