Let these numbers sink in, New Jersey.

As we face a pandemic, our state lab has the capacity to test 40 specimens daily in a state of 9 million people.

The state has two test kits provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Each kit contains 250 swabs.

That’s 500 swabs for 9 million people.

There is no point lingering on the Trump Administration, whose incompetence has left us vulnerable to this deadly disease. But we do have an obligation to demand accountability from our executive state government, as they attempt to manage the hazards of trying to combat this scourge without adequate federal resources.

“We’re not prepared as a nation or a state to do mass testing,” state Department of Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said today.

She said we will soon have those kits.

We need them yesterday.

In the meantime, “If you do not have symptoms, do not get tested,” she said.

We know at this moment – because of the disconnect between the state lab and private hospital companies conducting their own tests with their own kits –  that there is significant drag time between the numbers of presumptive COVID-19 cases in this state and those presumptive cases reported by the state Department of Health.

Yesterday we knew about 29 cases.

Today, Governor Phil Murphy told us about 50 confirmed cases in our state.

Among those cases is a 16-year old child from Bergen County.

The disconnect between public and private health arms means that there are likely many more cases of the virus among us than we know, or that we are allowing ourselves to be told exist.

We need more test kits in New Jersey, and we need to immediately find ways to get them to the people who need them. We are past the point of pointing fingers at those who refused to heed global alarm signals, which means if the feds lack oversight capabilities to ensure the greater dissemenation of test kits, we need to equip our own state government with those resources.

Now this is on us, New Jersey.

“We are exploring all avenues to expand access to testing,” said Murphy. “If you really need it, you’ve got to get testing. …We’re looking at everything.”

Get it done.

Yesterday.

The governor today did not decide to issue an executive decision to close public schools.

Local school districts with greater advantages and fewer children dependent on school lunches can arguably afford to keep children home. Many districts have decided to do locally what we apparently cannot do statewide because of the disparity in our children’s access to basic resources. There are over 600 school districts in the state and 354 are now closed.

“Food security is very important,” Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet said today. “We are actively working with school district leaders… to ensure our kids get the best services possible.”

Get it done, over the weekend, before Monday.

Because right now we are keeping many of our children in schools – and putting them at great risk within the context of our surmising, as a consequence of the private-public sector test result lag time, about many more cases than the state reports, and the reported case of a 16-year old – because those children need to eat. We are putting our children on the front lines of this pandemic because we have not insisted on a society that we can be assured will keep them safe and nourished if they stay home. We cannot be secure in the knowledge that if they stay home they won’t spread the disease to seniors shut out of their senior centers in this crisis.

Passaic City Mayor Hector Lora is in a terrible position.

So is Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.

They must worry about the impact on a community trying to protect itself from the coronavirus that will suffer the impact caused by the immediate absence of schools structure.

They need our help.

We need more test kits.

But know this.

More tests will obviously reveal a much deeper presence of the virus.

We must prepare ourselves for that inevitability – yesterday.

Those tests will also reveal again, on the back end, as they have again and again, the deep disparities in

our society between rich and poor, between those with resources and those without. If we are humane enough in this crisis that grips us all to see a chance to shake off that grotesque ailing strain of self-indulgence observable in our government, and substantially self-aware to recognize that it is not about Trump – but about us – we may survive.

“I would err on the side of caution at this point and hold my child at home,” said Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-39). “I don’t think we’re going to see a peak for a couple of weeks out, at least. It is on all of us to flatten that peak. Whatever ability people have to exercise responsible distance right now I think is in our best interest.”

“We have families who cannot stay home with their children, and to them we have to offer 100% security; employers have to be told,” said state Senator M. Teresa Ruiz (D-29) of Newark. “We must undertake a preemptive measure, not to create crisis mode but pro-active mode.”

“People are dying in Italy because they were too slow,” said state Senator Mike Doherty (R-23). “The schools should have been closed today.”

We must now step up in a substantial way, New Jersey, without executive leadership from a federal government that to date has been absent and even a hindrance to public health, or without the state if their fall back is to blame the feds – to assist, each within him or herself reaching outward, local law enforcement, healthcare providers and local elected officials – to protect those seniors and children whom we have thrown to the very front of the forward lines of this horror.