Summit Says: No Playdates Or Sleepovers In Time Of Coronavirus

SUMMIT, NJ -- As other communities have done this week, the city of Summit closed public spaces and encouraged residents to practice social distancing to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), to avoid overwhelming hospitals. And in a video and several posts on the city website Sunday, Mayor Nora Radest gave advice she said might sound "extreme."

"Do not schedule playdates, parties, sleepovers, or visits with other families," she said. "This sounds extreme because it is. We are trying to create distance between family units and between individuals across those family units."

She added, "Even if you have only one friend to have over, you are creating new links and possibilities for the type of transmission that all of our school, work, and public event closures are trying to prevent."

(Later Sunday night, the city sent an alert to residents saying they were informed of their first case, a male resident over fifty. See more on that story here.)

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The city also said the library and municipal court in town will be closed for at least two weeks. The schools are closed as well.

"The symptoms of coronavirus take four to five days to manifest themselves," Radest said in her video. "The wisdom of early and aggressive social distancing is that it can flatten the curve. We need to all do our part during these times."

"Try not to have physical contact with people outside of your family," she said. "Go outside every day if you can, but stay physically away from others. Try not to have kids play with each other, even outside, if that means direct physical contact."

Similar concerns about social distancing had been echoed by Regional Health Officer Megan Avallone on a panel on Friday.

Some communities, like Westfield and Hoboken, have begun telling restaurants and stores to offer delivery and takeout only, to minimize gatherings in close quarters. Hoboken told gyms and cinemas to close.

New Jersey's governor said Sunday that at least 98 people had been confirmed with the virus, an increase of 31 over the day before.

Experts say that the novel coronavirus, because it's new, is more lethal and harder to treat than the flu.

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that include the common cold as well as much more serious diseases. The strain that emerged in China in late 2019, now called COVID-19, is related to others that have caused serious outbreaks in recent years, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was on Jan. 21.

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