Gov. Phil Murphy says that there are currently no plans to shut down New Jersey’s restaurants as the second wave of COVID-19 impacts the state.

Murphy said on Monday that he has not seen any waves of infection linked to indoor dining, so he is not ready to close restaurants down, even if New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo considers it.

“That is not, right now, on the table for us,” Murphy said. “If we saw explicit waves of transmission from the indoor dining experience, we would have a different approach."

Murphy said that for now, he is sticking with a more strategic approach. There is no seating at bars and no indoor dining past 10 p.m. The New Jersey State Police have been shutting down businesses that do not comply.

The governor said that he knows about the negative economic impact a restaurant shutdown could have.

“We have no lifeline to throw these folks right now, so we better darn be sure if we shut something, it’s based on transmission – it’s based on facts,” Murphy said.

State health officials announced on Monday 3,573 new COVID-19 cases. There are 3,346 COVID patients in the hospital – with 637 in the ICU.

The union representing New Jersey’s 14,000 nurses, technicians and health care workers is calling for the state to force hospitals to report the number of employees who are sick or deceased from COVID.

“If our workers are home sick, who is going to care for sick patients? We will not have the staff to treat the surge expected in January, in February,” HPAE president Debbie White said.

Murphy said that he would be in favor of this transparency.

The governor is also asking New Jersey residents to answer calls from contact tracers. He said that 74% of the time people are not assisting with questions from the contact tracers.