Beaches and boardwalks along the Jersey Shore and lakes throughout New Jersey will be open, with some restrictions, this summer as the state continues to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday, a little more than a week from Memorial Day.
Under Murphy’s executive order, beaches and lakefronts must limit the number of visitors given access so people can properly socially distance. Families and households are allowed to cluster together, but otherwise people need to be six feet apart, the governor said.
The opening goes into effect May 22, the beginning of Memorial Day weekend — the unofficial start of the summer season.
“The Jersey Shore, after all, is where memories are made," Murphy said during his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “The last thing any of us wanted was for a summertime down the Shore to be a memory.”
Many beaches and boardwalks across the Shore have already reopened with social-distancing restrictions, but this order gives guidance to local leaders going forward and mandates some restrictions.
The move could also be a shot in the arm to New Jersey’s economy, which has been crippled by the pandemic. The Shore is one of the state’s economic engines.
Organized games, contact sports, concerts, festivals, and fireworks will be banned, and rides and arcade games will remain closed. But boardwalk restaurants can open for takeout and delivery.
Local towns will decide how to limit access by measures like cutting back on the number of beach tags for any given day. But Murphy warned officials cannot limit beaches to people of a particular town.
“Every beach will be required to establish capacity limitations, but we will leave it to local leaders to determine the method that would be best for their community,” the governor said. “No community can turn a public beach into a de facto private one. All visitors must have the ability to enjoy our state’s greatest natural resource.”
Swimming will be allowed along the shore, though lifeguards will likely be spaced out rather than sitting two guards to a post, officials said. It’s more likely that there will be one lifeguard per stand so they can also spread out swimmers.
Murphy also said bathrooms along the shore and in state and county parks can reopen.
He said masks or face coverings won’t be required. But he suggested people wear them when possible.
Murphy said it will be up to local authorities how to reprimand those who don’t comply with restrictions. Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard Desiderio said people may be kicked off the beach and ticketed, though he expects people to “police themselves.”
As the virus surged in the state after the first case was reported at the beginning of March, local officials closed beaches up and down the Jersey Shore and asked people not to visit those towns, even if they owned a second home there.
"We are living through unprecedented times, but we have confidence that residents and out-of-state visitors, alike, can take in a day at the beach safely, so long as the measures we are announcing today ... are followed,” Murphy said Thursday.
Still, the governor stressed New Jersey is “not out of the woods yet."
He announced the reopening the same day he said the death toll from the coronavirus has reached nearly 10,000 people since the beginning of March.
At least 9,946 residents have died and the number of confirmed cases rose to 142,704 on Thursday, Murphy said. The numbers include more than 244 new deaths and more than 1,216 new cases in the last 24 hours.
But Murphy said the numbers have dropped enough that he has begun to slowly lift the near-lockdown orders he’s installed in the state over the last two months.
He announced early this month that state and county parks, as well as golf courses, could reopen a limited capacity.
He announced Wednesday nonessential businesses and construction can open and resume beginning Monday morning. Things like religious ceremonies and graduations can also occur as long as people remain in their vehicles and roll up their windows if parked within six feet of one another.
The number of patients at New Jersey hospitals dropped by about half from the peak a month ago.
The state’s 71 hospitals had 3,958 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases as of Wednesday night, according to state data. That’s the lowest number since the state began publicly tracking hospitalizations on April 4 and follows four straight weekly declines averaging more than 1,000 patients.
The state hit a peak height with 8,084 hospitalizations on April 14, according to the data.
Murphy has referenced the hospital number repeatedly as the best real-time indicator of the status of the coronavirus outbreak in New Jersey because it is not subject to the same lags for getting test results.
The governor was asked Thursday if he’s worried beaches will draw huge crowds, make social distancing difficult, and cause another spike in the virus.
Murphy said said there’s a “benefit” to taking smaller steps.
“If you take a series of incremental steps, you can be much more nimble in assessing the impact of those," he added.
Murphy also said beaches are “getting toward the edge of what we can responsibly do right now."
“This is something we’re all gonna hold hands and do together recognizing we know people are dying to let steam off, they’re dying to get off," he said. "We’re gonna have a big burden of responsibility to get that as right as we can.”
