At the risk of belaboring the point, don’t expect to see an editorial here every time New Jersey adds or subtracts Delaware from its COVID-19 “hot list” of states from which travelers are not supposed to enter the Garden State unless they agree to a two-week lockdown.
But, since this seems to change weekly, as feared, it’s worth repeating the chilling, confusing effect this has on the flow of normal activities between residents of South Jersey and nearby Delaware.
On Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy put Delaware back on his “no fly” list, a week after he lifted a previous ban that had lasted less that a week.
This time, Delaware Gov. John Carney announced that he is “mad as hell” about the July 21 quarantine shift. Asked about Carney’s reaction at his Wednesday press event, Murphy dismissively answered, “It is what it is,” and added that a bouncing quarantine is what happens “when you make the call based on the data.”
Carney is disputing New Jersey’s interpretation of data showing COVID-19 metrics on the rise enough in Delaware to justify Lockdown, Part Deux. To be sure, New York and Connecticut use the same methodology and the same list, but neither share a direct border with Delaware.
“We are better today than we were when we were first put on the list two weeks ago,” Carney said at a Tuesday news conference. “And we are better today than we were last week when we were taken off the list. We shouldn’t be on the list.”
That’s, um, more than a little confusing. It would have been backed up better had Carney offered more than apples-to-oranges comparisons to the exact data points collected by New Jersey. Suffice it to say that Delaware is not California, Florida or Arizona right now.
To repeat, one last time, Salem, Cumberland and Cape May county residents should be allowed to shop, and seek heath care and maintenance services from the Delaware merchants and businesses they use regularly. And, northern Delaware residents who hanker for fruit and veg from South Jersey farm stands should not have to fear 14-day limbo if they get caught before they reach the cash register.
Carney claimed that Delaware was being “penalized” for its small size and robust pace of coronavirus testing. Don’t we have enough leaders who promote or are fascinated by conspiracy theories right now?
However, it’s doubtful that New Jersey would impose a full lockdown on the New York City area or Southeastern Pennsylvania if they were to return to higher-risk COVID-19 status. First, these are huge states with wide rural swaths that dilute metro-area spikes when data are examined statewide basis. Additionally, the blowback would be so much larger under travel bans between Philadelphia and South Jersey, or New York and North Jersey, that Murphy would not want to deal with it.
If New Jersey really wanted to lock out COVID-19 cases coming from Delaware, Murphy would deploy storm troopers to stop every car and foot passenger ready to disembark the Cape May-Lewes Ferry on the New Jersey side. Any Delaware resident who won’t swear to stay locked inside a New Jersey private home for two weeks couldn’t come ashore — except to wait for the next boat back to Lewes.
That is not going to happen, of course. It again shows the futility of attempting to enforce these restrictions between bordering states. Take Delaware off of New Jersey’s naughty list, unless or until its numbers start zooming to epic levels.
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July 23, 2020 at 06:35PM
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