As the State of NJ continues to grapple with the COVID-19 health crisis, the debate over Governor Murphy’s timeline for re-opening businesses and easing social distancing restrictions has intensified. Earlier this week, an explosive letter was sent anonymously to Senate President Sweeney, Senate Minority Leader Kean, and local media outlets from state health employees, alleging that Governor Murphy was not, in fact, letting the “data drive the decisions” on when to relax the shutdown on small businesses. “Despite the governor’s slogans, there are, in fact, no established thresholds to this effect that came from the public health experts in his state government,” they wrote. “In reality, his own public health officials in the health department have no idea what inputs he is using to make opening decisions.” Even worse, the whistleblowers claim that the Administration’s poor leadership and lack of focus on providing PPE to at-risk nursing home residents led to a high number of preventable deaths. For details, and to read a copy of the letter in full, see the coverage on NJ.com.
Gov. Phil Murphy. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for New Jersey Globe)
