GOV MURPHY PRESS CONFERENCE
Aug. 7
- The Small Landlord Emergency Grant Program was announced to give forgivable money to small residential rental property owners to make up for missed and partial rent payments from tenants. This program was made for the small landlords with buildings of three to 10 residential units of low to moderate level renters, according to the federal low-income tax credit program. This is intended to cover the rent missed by tenants due to COVID between April 2020 and July 2020. If property owners receive the grant money, they must pass this on to the tenants cover the cost of their missed rent payments. Visit nj.gov/dca/hmfa for more information.
- Contact tracing: 60% of positive cases have been followed up; 44% have been followed up within 24 hours. More than half have provided contact information and 48% of these have had their contacts contacted. But of the remaining, 45% have not provided contact information.
- If you have traveled into NJ from one of the quarantine states and you have been tested and received a negative test result this DOES NOT MEAN you are exempt from the 14-day quarantine. The negative result may have been from an early low virus count. They are currently receiving 1,000 surveys daily from travelers, but they would like more.
- The NJ Dept. of Education has posted a Frequently Asked Question page about the upcoming school year at nj.gov/education page.
- The statewide spot positivity was 1.95%. In North Jersey 1.78%, Central Jersey 1.52%, South Jersey 2.82%. The Rt is 1.15. This is the sixth day in a row of a lower Rt.
- There was a 40% decrease of initial unemployment claims. Murphy said we have a long way to go “but this is a glimmer of hope”. He said of the 1.3 million New Jersians eligible for unemployment, 96% have received at least their first check.
- New Jersey has a 65% self-response rate for the 2020 Census.
