WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th June, 2020) The US state of New Jersey has put on hold its plan to relax COVID-19 restrictions and permit indoor dining at restaurants as the number of recorded pandemic cases surges again across the United States, Governor Phil Murphy said on Monday.
"We had planned to loosen restrictions this week," Murphy said in a Twitter message. "However, after COVID19 spikes in other states driven by, in part, the return of indoor dining, we have decided to postpone indoor dining indefinitely."
The people of New Jersey had enjoyed great success in practicing social distancing and keeping the infection curve of the COVID-19 virus low and putting it into decline, but it was too early to relax precautions and allow the disease to rebound, Murphy warned.
"We cannot let up. We have to keep pulling together. We have to keep up with our commonsense practices. This war is not over. We are still fighting. We cannot fall into complacency," he said.
As of Monday, New Jersey, a state with a population of 17 million people, had recorded 171,182 cases of COVID-19, including 14,975 fatalities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
