Second Westfield Resident Dies Of Coronavirus

WESTFIELD, NJ — A second Westfield resident has died from coronavirus, Mayor Shelley Brindle said in her update to residents on Saturday evening.

She wrote, "We have three additional cases in Westfield which, sadly, includes our second fatality — a 67 year-old male with a pre-existing health condition, who passed away at Overlook Hospital [in Summit]. Please join me in keeping his family in your prayers, as we all continue to do our part to keep this virus from spreading and claiming more lives. The official case count in Westfield from the Board of Health is now 31 cases."

Another Westfield resident, an elderly man, died from the virus last week.

Nationally, it was reported Saturday that an Illinois infant died from coronavirus, the first child that young in this country to die from the disorder.

On Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that 140 residents of the state have died of the disease and more than 11,000 are confirmed to have it.

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Brindle also wrote:

<blockquote>Given the increasing number of cases, the Westfield Regional Health Department will continue to provide daily updates on the total number of confirmed cases, but will only be sharing detailed reports with age, gender and status information twice per week...

On a state level, Governor Murphy signed an Executive Order requiring designated health care facilities to report daily data on their PPE inventory, bed capacity, and ventilators to the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management and New Jersey Department of Health.

He also announced a 90-day grace period for mortgage payments for borrowers economically impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information on these and other state initiatives, please visit covid19.nj.gov.

I know many of you have questions about the potential for a quarantine in New Jersey, following today’s remarks by President Trump. At this time, we have not received any additional clarification about this, but will be sure to communicate any updates on this front.

</blockquote>

Regarding Trump, he later decided in favor of an advisory rather than a ban on travel outside the state.

Many people throughout the state are waiting for a test or waiting for results.

Experts say that the novel coronavirus, because it's new, is more lethal and much 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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