Murphy Wants More Time to Consider Indoor Dining
There’s something unappealing about dining outside when it’s more than 90 degrees.
So it was no surprise that the governor was asked today when indoor dining – and air conditioning – will return to the Garden State.
The simple answer – not yet.
The numbers continue to look good. Phil Murphy announced only 117 new Covid-19 cases today and only nine deaths. The testing positivity rate is less than 3 percent and the transmission rate is below 1 percent.
But the governor wants more before he contemplates reopening indoor dining, which originally was supposed to happen back on July 2.
He spoke about a seven-day rolling average of such metrics as positivity rate and new hospitalizations. He wants to see steady downward trends.
That’s not all.
Murphy also wants to see “some dying of (the) raging fires we are seeing in other states.”
The governor has a point. The virus has been spiking for weeks in many other states.
To that end, Murphy says he wants to make sure people entering New Jersey from high risk states are entering self-quarantine. This can be a chancy thing. As Murphy admits, the State Police are not stopping people at the borders. A lot of this is voluntary and Murphy hopes to see evidence – if that’s possible – people are doing it.
And he reiterated a point he has made often – the virus spreads more quickly inside than it does in the open air. He speculated most of the spiking in other states stems from indoor activity.
So dining outside appears to be the order of the day for the foreseeable future.
To that end, the governor today praised the creativity of restaurants to make eating outside attractive. He spoke of visiting restaurants over the weekend in his home area of Monmouth County and discovering unique seating plans and streets closed to accommodate tables under the stars.
“You felt like you were in some European city,” he said.
Red Bank and Paris, perfect together. Who knew?
All indoor spaces should be fitted w ventilation units that pull air flow downward away from our lungs & evacutes stale filthy air through a heat exchanger OUTSIDE
Sounds good and expensive but if doing this for the purpose of prevention of COVID assuming it’s air borne unfortunately, don’t work. Would do nothing to prevent getting it. The same as cloth and “blue masks” do nothing to prevent it, these only have minimal protection if your infected from passing it. CDC said at beginning they were ineffective, and they are. They and states just adopted it to make people feel better. If indeed it is airborne only full face, fitted masks with the correct screw in air cartridges prevent air borne viruses.
And most masks dont fit properly if one has facial hair.
I hope the 1.3 million unemployed workers and business owners remember this clown on re-elections. He’s killing the state more than COVID is. He’s worried about people from other states coming to NJ. What about all the people from NJ that border NY and Pennsylvania that go to restaurants with indoor dining/bars and come back? Open up already, if you want to go to a bar or restaurant, go, if you don’t, don’t. It’s the same as supermarkets. I choose only to go once every other week, others go everyday. That’s their choice.
I live a mile or so from a restaurant in another state that allows indoor dining. I walk there for Sunday brunch and walk back all the time!
Murphy Is a D-bag political hack. This is total politics. He Hope’s this will hurt Trump by keeping restaurants closed. However, there is no way schools should open if you can’t eat inside a restaurant. School cafeterias are just like restaurants. If you can’t eat in a restaurant, how can you eat in a cafeteria? Uncle Phil can’t have it both ways.
I’ve eaten indoors eight times since June in CT & NY. Very responsible restaurants, no outbreaks, I didn’t get sick. No phone calls from a restaurant saying someone reported having covid after dining there. Nothing nada and I haven’t heard any instances at all like that. If you keep everything closed people will and have rebelled with having their own parties. That’s where you’ve heard about spikes in cases. Not from bars and restaurants that are regulated and have to be responsible in order to stay open. I don’t know what’s happened to common sense. We’ve all taken our stay at home punish/banishments. We’ve learned how to be careful and more responsible. When are these governors going to learn that No matter how many executive orders and laws are passed they will NEVER be able to control all human behavior. I mean how has that little law….you can’t MURDER people doing? People still commit murders every day. You can’t legislate away human’s free will.
removed