Dear Neighbors,
I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving Day! In times like these, we all should take stock of the many blessings in our lives and that for which we are grateful. I am grateful for my health, the health of my family, and the wonderful community I am proud to call home. Now, let’s turn to some important Hoboken updates.
COVID-19 Updates
As of Thursday, 1353 Hoboken residents have confirmed as testing positive for COVID-19 and 1047 residents have fully recovered. The number of positive tests in our community has unfortunately substantially increased in the past few weeks. Likewise, New Jersey’s new daily positive cases have risen to levels not seen since May, which caused Governor Murphy to extend the State of Emergency for another 30 days. New Jersey’s State-wide COVID-19 transmission rate has increased to 1.27, reflecting that active COVID cases are rapidly increasing, as New Jersey’s goal to have a transmission rate below 1.0.
Hoboken’s recent increase in positive cases includes 27 new cases on November 14th, 19 on November 18th, 32 on November 19th, 21 new cases on November 20th, and 22 new cases on both November 23rd and 24th. In July we celebrated the landmark of having no COVID patients at Hoboken University Medical Center (HUMC). However, we now have 13 COVID patients being treated at HUMC, including 4 Hoboken residents.
If you have any reason to believe you have been exposed to COVID-19, please quarantine and then schedule an appointment for a COVID-19 test with Riverside Medical Group at 15th and Jefferson or Prompt MD at 605 Jackson Street at least 5-7 days after potential exposure. Scheduling appointments no longer requires phone calls to our CERT team, you can easily go online at www.hobokennj.gov/riverside to book an available time slot with Riverside. Riverside offers rapid 15-minute COVID-19 test results to Hoboken residents. Employees of Hoboken businesses also can get tested through the City’s partnership with Prompt MD. Testing is available 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday.
Partnering with Prompt MD, the City also hosts COVID-19 testing on Mondays and Thursdays at 605 Jackson Street from 8 am until 3 pm, with weekly Friday testing being added beginning on November 20. It’s easy to schedule an appointment - visit www.hobokennj.gov/promptmd. Please remember: wearing a face mask and practicing social distancing is the key to keeping our community healthy and safe. Results are typically provided through Prompt MD within 48 - 72 hours.
This week, the City of Hoboken added two additional COVID test partners to add to the number of options and address the increased demand for COVID testing in our community. I thank Mayor Bhalla and his Administration for working to add this significant, additional daily testing offered at no cost to our residents or City employees to help meet the substantial demand before Thanksgiving and beyond. Here are details on our two new COVID test providers:
Medicine Man Pharmacy: will offer testing through the City’s partnership at 605 Jackson Street for Hoboken residents between 9 am and 1 pm. Medicine Man Pharmacy offers rapid testing (BD Veritor Plus Antigen test), which will be emailed within 3-6 hours of testing.
ivee: is Hoboken’s newest COVID test provider. On ivee’s first day working with the City, this Tuesday, ivee administered over 400 COVID tests and will continue providing PCR tests for our residents to meet the great demand. ivee’s PCR test results will be emailed within 24-48 hours.
The City will work with ivee and Medicine Man Pharmacy to supplement our public test facilities with Riverside and Prompt MD in the weeks ahead.
In addition to Hoboken’s public COVID-19 facilities, you can visit City MD at 231 Washington Street or PromptMD at 309 1st Street, and walk-in without an appointment to get your COVID-19 test at their private facilities. To be safe, you can call ahead to confirm test availability.
Hoboken Businesses and Contact Tracing
Our Office of Emergency Management has enacted new guidelines requiring bars, restaurants, fitness and health clubs, lounges, gyms, and wellness facilities to maintain contact details for all customers, along with the time of arrival, in order to provide enhanced contact monitoring efforts to better protect patrons of our local businesses should any positive COVID cases be traced to these establishments.
For example, if an employee of a local business test positive, the Hoboken Health Department can contact all potentially affected customers. Information collected by each business needs to be maintained for only 30 days and will only be shared with the City to address a related COVID-19 contact tracing effort. In the event that any Hoboken employee tests positive the Hoboken Health Department should be promptly notified by emailing healthdepartment@hobokennj.gov. You can see NBC New York’s coverage of Hoboken’s increased efforts to improve our contact tracing program including my brief interview here.
New Jersey COVID Alert App
One way that you can keep track of New Jersey COVID data is to download the COVID Alert NJ app. It allows you to check-in and get updates from the New Jersey Department of Health on COVID-related information as well as exposure alerts. Features on the app that you can activate include notifications if you have been within six feet for at least 10 minutes of other users who have tested positive for COVID-19. You can download the app here in the App Store or here on the Google Play Store. For more information about the COVID Alert NJ app, you can click here.
Stricter Limits on Indoor Gatherings
As of November 17th, Governor Murphy restricted indoor gatherings in New Jersey to only 10 people. This includes all indoor activities outside the home. As a result, Hoboken’s House Party Ordinance, which permits summons to issue for rowdy house parties with fines of up to $1,000 now applies to any indoor gatherings of 10 people or more. You can read more about the Indoor House Party ordinance in my prior newsletter here or local news coverage about this important ordinance here.
Discounted PPE Program for NJ Small Businesses and Not-For-Profits
NJ-based businesses and non-profits are eligible for a 10% discount on PPE purchases through the New Jersey Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Access Program. Businesses with fewer than 100 employees may be eligible for an even greater 25% discount. To apply click here.
Cool Profile of Mayor Bhalla in Spin Magazine
Did you know that our Mayor was an All-State doubles tennis player his senior year in high school? Want to guess his favorite Bruce Springsteen song? (Trust me, your guess will be wrong.) I learned a lot about Mayor Bhalla that I didn’t know in Spin Magazine’s profile -- including that he is a fellow fan of The Boss! You can learn all that and more in this intimate profile of Hoboken’s Mayor. Check it out here.
Coffee with Cohen . . . the home edition
To practice social distancing, rather than eliminate my monthly Coffee with Cohen constituent events, I turned to the internet. On Monday, I hosted my most recent Coffee with Cohen Livestream event. Already, over 270 people have viewed this event. This week I shared the results of my poll on your plans to celebrate Thanksgiving. I also let you know the many ways you can help support the Hoboken Shelter this holiday season, and my opposition to the Hudson County Legislature’s renewing the County Prison contract with ICE as a revenue source for housing non-citizen asylees in ICE custody. My favorite part is answering your questions, and this week you asked about Hoboken’s vote in the National Election (where almost 65% of Hoboken registered voters participated in a huge turnout!), and I discussed Hoboken’s election results. If you haven’t seen it, you can check it out here.
You can also submit your questions for my next event to HobokenPhil@gmail.com, as I try to answer each question you submit. The event is hosted on my Facebook page @Philcohenforcouncil and you can watch it here. As long as we have this state of emergency, I plan to continue hosting Coffee with Cohen twice a month online. My next event will be at noon on Monday, December 7th and I hope to see you there.
In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter at @philiphcohen here. As always, if you’d like to reach out with any questions or concerns, or if I can be of any assistance to you or your family, do not hesitate to contact me at HobokenPhil@gmail.com.
Stay safe everyone!
Phil Cohen
5th Ward Councilman
City of Hoboken, New Jersey
HobokenPhil@gmail.com
(862) 234-9053
P.S. You can learn more about me and my ideas for Hoboken (as well as read this newsletter and my prior newsletters) on my website philcohen.org.
