Philly COVID-19 hospitalizations jump 48%; vaccine won’t be required for Pa. school children; N.J. to tighten restrictions on outdoor gatherings, indoor sports

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy encouraged anyone who spent Thanksgiving with non-household members to get tested, but said anecdotal evidence suggested most residents heeded public health warnings and kept celebrations small.

The state added 3,199 cases and 15 deaths. Noting that daily case numbers and hospitalizations have steadily increased for two months, Murphy and health officials implored residents to take strict precautions to avoid becoming infected or spreading the virus in the weeks to come.

The health department will issue safety guidelines for everything from family dinners to Christmas tree-lighting events. Caroling and singing groups should keep away from each other and wear masks, he said, and holiday parades are discouraged. Nonessential out of state travel is also discouraged.

”This year, we need to change how we enjoy the holidays,” said Ed Lifshitz, medical director for the department of health.

Lifshitz advised against in-person visits with Santa, but said if done they should involve reservations, masks and social distancing.

“Children should not be permitted to sit on Santa’s lap,” he said.

The state’s 3,000 contact tracers are now finding that almost 70% of those who test positive and are reached by tracers are refusing to cooperate, Murphy said.

— Allison Steele

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced the expected ban on indoor youth sports, but said he hoped it would be temporary, acknowledging the health benefits of team sports.

“I hope and intend to see the winter sports season in January,” said Murphy, noting that his four children all play sports. “I want to see especially that high school senior get to play her or his last season. ... But we are seeing outbreaks related to indoor sports, and this is a prudent short term step to slow the spread.”

The ban goes into effect Saturday morning and will remain in place through Jan. 2. College and professional sports are exempted.

Effective next Monday, the state’s limit on the size of outdoor gatherings will drop from 150, to 25, with exceptions made for weddings, funerals, and other protected activities. Murphy did not set an end date for that order. Outdoor dining is unaffected by the new guidelines.

Murphy said the state was better positioned to handle outbreaks than in the spring, and dismissed speculation that a broader shutdown was imminent.

“Today we see more moves on the board that we can take,” he said. “We have much better data and science to draw from. ... And we can focus restrictions on the activities that have been proven to have the greatest risk of transmission.”

Indoor hockey alone has led to 20 outbreaks and more than 100 cases, said Ed Lipschitz, medical director for the department of health.

Last spring, the rapid risk in hospitalizations pointed to the “collapse” of the healthcare system, Murphy said. Hospitals also struggled with PPE shortages, and testing was scarce.

“The cliff we were standing on was frightening,” he said. Since then, he said, the state has spent months expanding testing and stockpiling supplies, among other precautions.

— Allison Steele

Pennsylvanians will once again be asked to reduce the size of their gatherings for the next batch of winter holidays, Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Monday.

”Our recommendation for the upcoming holidays is to please stay home,” she said. “I know that is a tremendous sacrifice for Christmas, for Hanukkah, for Kwanzaa, and for New Year’s.”

But as the virus surges to unprecedented levels, people should not travel, especially via public transportation, and should celebrate in-person with only members of their household, Levine said.

”This right now — this November, December, January, February — looks like it’s going to be the peak time in terms of transmission of COVID-19,” she said. Beyond that, she added, health officials are hopeful that the vaccines will have an impact on the virus’ spread. “I think 2021, especially the second half of 2021, will look much better.”

But in order to get through until then, she said people need to follow public health guidelines as closely as ever, especially in the days after last week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

“In public health, we are very concerned about the potential impact of the Thanksgiving holiday and particularly those people who, despite our advice, traveled … and those that did have smaller and larger gatherings,” Levine said.

She said people who were at gatherings last week may want to “assume they were exposed and to quarantine.” Anyone who experiences any symptoms during that period should get tested, she said, and people without symptoms may want to be tested about a week after their travel or gathering.

— Erin McCarthy

Philadelphia hospitals continue to fill as COVID-19 cases continue to spread across the city.

In Philadelphia, 788 patients with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Monday, the city reported, up 48% since Nov. 18, when 530 coronavirus patients were in the hospital. 69 patents were on ventilators.

Philadelphia also reported 1,784 new cases since Friday, lower than recent weekends, likely due to Thanksgiving lab closures. Most health experts expect the number of new cases to climb approaching the middle of December, pushed higher by holiday gatherings.

Overall, 65,484 Philadelphians have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 1,971 have died — with five new deaths reported on Monday. Of the city’s deaths, 927 (about 47%) were residents at long term care facilities.

— Rob Tornoe

As the nation prepares for coronavirus vaccines that may begin to be distributed next month to the most vulnerable populations, Pennsylvania health officials said they do not plan to require school children to be vaccinated against the virus before returning to classrooms in the 2021-2022 school year.

”We have no plans to make the COVID-19 vaccine required for anyone, including for school children,” Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Monday, noting there have not yet been enough studies about the vaccine’s effects on people in that age group. “We’ll wait and see what the science tells us in terms of the vaccine in young people.”

— Erin McCarthy

Pennsylvania on Monday set a pandemic record for hospitalizations, with 4,405 people hospitalized across the commonwealth as of 8 a.m., “clearly surpassing our highest numbers from the spring” surge, health secretary Rachel Levine said.

Of those patients, 970 were being treated in intensive care units as of midday, according to state data, and nearly 500 were on ventilators. Across the commonwealth, 796 adult ICU beds remained available, according to that data.

As health experts brace for a post-Thanksgiving uptick in already surging numbers, Pennsylvania recorded 4,268 additional confirmed cases of the virus on Monday, Levine said, and more than 500 Pennsylvanians have died of virus-related complications in the past week.

None of the commonwealth’s healthcare regions have reached the metrics, announced last week, that would require its hospitals to reduce the number of elective procedures by 50%, Levine said.

That will happen if a region meets two or more metrics: a third or more of its hospitals are expecting staffing shortages in the following week, the average number of hospital admissions increases by more than 50% in two days, or fewer than 10% of all medical/surgical beds in the region are anticipated to be free in the next three days.

Despite no regions meeting two of those criteria at this time, the secretary said some areas are strained by the fall resurgence. The commonwealth is “very concerned about the hospital capacity,” Levine said, and has asked hospitals to “self regulate” and collaborate regionally in terms of staffing and beds.

While no broad restrictions, including a lockdown or stay-at-home order, are under consideration at this time, Levine said she and her colleagues would continue to watch those hospital numbers closely.

As the number of virus-related deaths also rises, Levine said officials are seeing more deaths outside of care facilities than they did during the initial spring surge, adding “I think that’s reflective of the widespread community transmission of COVID-19 in all regions of Pennsylvania.”

— Erin McCarthy

Temporary restaurant closings are piling up with the approach of winter, as prospects fade for outdoor dining. The effects of government restrictions are particularly acute in the City of Philadelphia, which on Nov. 20 banned all indoor dining in a bid to stem the rise in cases of the coronavirus. Outdoor tables are limited to four persons of the same household.

Among the latest restaurants and bars to announce temporary shutdowns are two South Philadelphia bar-restaurants on divergent ends of the dining spectrum: the posh Le Virtu, which wrapped till 2021 effective Nov. 29, and Devil’s Den, a casual bar that will mark its last call outside Dec. 6 and plans a series of pop-up shops. Both are expected to return in 2021 when restrictions ease.

Even with costly heaters, streeteries, and tents, many restaurateurs are finding that outdoor dining is not a high-return proposition. Restaurant workers, particularly waiters, food runners, and bartenders, are seeing fewer opportunities and less income. Also playing out in the restaurant community right now is a rise in drug overdoses connected to cocaine tainted with fentanyl.

» READ MORE: Here are some of the Philly-area restaurants that have closed in 2020

— Michael Klein

Officials in Pennsylvania and New Jersey will offer coronavirus updates on Monday as cases and hospitalizations continue to climb.

Judith Persichilli, New Jersey’s top health official, won’t take part in today’s briefing because she is in self-isolation due to a positive COVID-19 test within the Department of Health. Taking her place Monday will be Edward Lifshitz, the medical director of the state’s Communicable Disease Service.

Here’s a schedule of how to watch and stream:

— Rob Tornoe

Indoor youth and high school sports in New Jersey will be banned starting Friday for the rest of the year, and the limit of people allowed to gather outdoors will be reduced to 25, from 150, both efforts to suppress an ongoing surge of new cases of the coronavirus.

New Jersey Gov Murphy is expected to announce the latest restrictions Monday at his regular news briefing. The details, first reported by NJ.com, were confirmed by members of Murphy’s staff. The new restriction on outdoor gatherings will begin on Monday

The new sports guidelines will not affect professional sports. Outdoor sports will still be allowed, but only 25 spectators will be able to attend games and practices. The sports restrictions will go into effect on Saturday.

Murphy is expected to release more details this afternoon. In recent weeks, he has said that he couldn’t rule out the possibility of broader shutdown orders if cases and deaths continue to increase.

— Allison Steele

Moderna Inc. said it would ask U.S. and European regulators Monday to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine as new study results confirm the shots offer strong protection against the virus.

Moderna created its shots with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and already had a hint they were working, but the company said it got the final needed results over the weekend that suggest the vaccine is more than 94% effective.

Of 196 COVID-19 cases so far in its huge U.S. study, 185 were trial participants who received the placebo and 11 who got the real vaccine. The only people who got severely ill — 30 participants, including one who died — had received dummy shots, said Tal Zaks, the company’s chief medical officer.

When he learned the results, “I allowed myself to cry for the first time,” Zaks told The Associated Press. “We have already, just in the trial, have already saved lives. Just imagine the impact then multiplied to the people who can get this vaccine.”

Moderna said the shots’ effectiveness and a good safety record so far — with only temporary, flu-like side effects — mean they meet requirements set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use before the final-stage testing is complete. The European Medicines Agency, Europe’s version of FDA, has signaled it also is open to faster, emergency clearance.

» READ MORE: Moderna asking U.S., European regulators for emergency approval of its coronavirus vaccine

— Associated Press

Pennsylvania continues to experience a spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations as a new surge of infections is expected over the next few weeks following gatherings for Thanksgiving.

The Department of Health reported 4,405 COVID-19 hospitalizations as of Sunday, an increase of nearly 2,000 over just the past two weeks alone. At the height of the spring surge, COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked at 2,763. 474 people were on ventilators Sunday, the most since mid-May.

The number of new hospital admissions is expected to keep climbing over the next month due to holiday gatherings, though the real impact of Thanksgiving won’t be known until Christmas is closer.

“When you look at people who are hospitalized today, they were infected two weeks ago, maybe more,” Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN Sunday. “And then it takes usually another week for folks to succumb to the illness.”

Pennsylvania is now averaging nearly 6,800 new cases a day, and the test positivity rate has increased to 11.7%, from 9.6% last week and 6.8% two weeks ago, according to state data.

Here’s where things stand as of Monday, according to an Inquirer analysis of data from each local health department (though recent data is expected to be lower due to lab closures for Thanksgiving):

» READ MORE: Exhausted health-care workers ‘scream into the abyss’ about rising coronavirus cases

— Rob Tornoe

The government’s top infectious-disease expert sounded the alarm Sunday, warning of a “surge superimposed upon” a surge of coronavirus cases over the coming weeks due to Thanksgiving travel and celebrations.

Anthony Fauci and other experts urged Americans to take aggressive action as the December holidays loom to mitigate the surge overwhelming hospitals across the country. As the number of coronavirus-related deaths per day rose to its highest point since April, Fauci and others highlighted the importance of complying with mask mandates and physical distancing.

“It’s going to get worse over the next several weeks, but the actions that we take in the next several days will determine how bad it is or whether or not we continue to flatten our curve,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Fox News on Sunday.

The number of coronavirus-related death rates are nearing record levels in the United States not seen since the spring. About 95,000 people are currently hospitalized with the disease, according to Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health and human services. Roughly 20 percent of all hospitalized people have COVID-19, he added.

Asked on CNN’s State of the Union if the United States could reach 4,000 deaths per day in the aftermath of a record number of travelers, Giroir said that he couldn’t project how much the weekend may have exacerbated spread of the virus.

“But, remember, we’re not passive bystanders,” Giroir added. “If we do the right thing — universal mask-wearing, avoiding indoor spaces, crowded bars, restaurants, indoors, all those [sorts] of things — we can still flatten this.”

— Washington Post

A Pennsylvania state senator abruptly left a West Wing meeting with President Donald Trump after being informed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin) had gone to the White House last Wednesday with like-minded Republican state lawmakers shortly after a four-hour-plus public meeting that Mastriano helped host in Gettysburg — maskless — to discuss efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Trump told Mastriano that White House medical personnel would take care of him, his son and his son’s friend, who were also there for the Oval Office meeting and tested positive. The meeting continued after Mastriano and the others left, the person said.

All participants in Wednesday’s meeting took COVID-19 tests, but the positive results were not announced until they were in the West Wing of the White House, the person said.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private session because the matter is politically sensitive.

» READ MORE: Pa. State Sen. Doug Mastriano tests postive for COVID-19 after meeting Republicans at White House

— Associated Press