New Jersey health officials are closely watching a spike in new coronavirus cases in Ocean County, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.
The state reported 561 new positive tests for COVID-19 in the last day. However, 242 of those cases were from Ocean County at the Jersey Shore.
"We continue to see the statewide number driven in large part by significant new cases coming out of Ocean County," Murphy said.
The state has dispatched a "hot spot team" to the county to step up testing, and has also deployed 20 additional contact tracers, said state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli at Murphy's Monday press conference.
Murphy had also warned of the spike last week. Ocean County has had 13,402 diagnosed coronavirus cases -- far less than some counties in North Jersey, but by far the most in South Jersey.
The new cases are a fraction of the county's peak number of daily new virus cases; that was more than 4,300 on April 3. But it's an uptick that has the state watching closely.
Over the last six days, Ocean County has had about 28% of the state's new cases, Persichilli said.
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