Urgently sounding the alarm bell for more federal testing resources, Governor Phil Murphy this afternoon reported an additional 4,059 state-processed COVID-19 positive cases bringing New Jersey’s statewide total to 68,824 positive cases. In 24 hours, the virus-besieged state processed 365 more deaths – the highest in any 24-hour period since the beginning of the crisis over a month ago – bringing the overall COVID-19 death toll to 2,805.

“The date of the peak has been stretched out to the 25th,” said State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli.

The governor said the state has accounted for 8,185 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, with 2,051 critical cases, and 1,626 patients on ventilators. From 10 p.m. on Sunday to 10 p.m. last night, 514 people left hospital for home, Murphy said.

“We will get through this as one strong extraordinary New Jersey family,” said the governor, who appeared 15 minutes behind schedule at his daily 1 p.m. briefing at the War Memorial in Trenton.

“A lot of balls in the air,” he explained.

He noted that a new COVID-19 testing site will open at Raritan Valley Community College on April 16th for Somerset and Hunterdon residents with signs of respiratory illness.

He proceeded to step up his request to the feds for more resources.

Even with 66 testing sites in New Jersey right now, “Testing is not nearly where it needs to be,” Murphy said.

“On one hand, the metrics are getting better for testing. We have run the fourth most states in America, and the three states in front of us [California, New York and Florida] have way more people than we do,” Murphy said. But “We need more support for testing. We have played a very tough hand. …I’d like that hand to be a lot bigger. We can’t begin to think about reopening unless the resources we get from the federal government are a lot more robust.

“We need help,” he added.

Murphy made his statement a day after a consortium of governors held a conference call to try to compose a harmonized response to gearing up for the next step: reopening the economy in a “coordinated and cooperative way,” in the words of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“I want to make sure we are smart in the way we are doing this, guided by science and not in a political way,” said Cuomo.

To that end, each state will form a working group led by a health representative and the chief of staff of each state’s respective governor (George Helmy, in the case of New Jersey). The New York and New Jersey governors (along with Connecticut Governor Ed Lamont, Delaware Governor John Carney, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo) gathered on the phone (apparently at the invitation of Cuomo) to sound a note of hope, but also to make sure they don’t reopen too early, and use science alone to systematize next-step action.

“An economic recovery occurs on the back only on the back of a full healthcare recovery,” said Murphy, noting that New Jersey has not yet reached its COVID-19 palteau that Cuomo claimed New York attained. “The council we’re forming today. We have to begin to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

Murphy again today emphasized the need for New Jerseyans to abide by his social distancing order.

“Keep staying in unless you absolutely need to go out,” said the governor.