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Charter Fishing Boats, Rentals Added To OK List As New Jersey Continues Reopening From COVID-19 Shutdown

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) - In addition to Jersey Shore beaches and lakefront communities reopening ahead of Memorial Day weekend, now people in the Garden State will be able to take to the water.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced an executive order allowing chartered-boat services, including fishing and watercraft rentals, to resume on Sunday starting at 6 a.m.

"In both instances, we will require specific social distancing and sanitation measures to be followed, including the implementation of online or telephone payment systems to further lessen direct person to person contact among other procedures spelled out in my order," the governor said during his Saturday COVID-19 briefing.

"One of those will also require that all passenger and customer logs be properly maintained for the purposes of contact tracing, should that be required," he said. "We are confident than in taking these steps for getting our state on the road back, for the same reason that we've been able to take the other steps that we've announced over the past few days, to restart our economy and begin our recovery is because the data says that it is possible."

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

On Wednesday, Murphy made an executive order to allow non-essential construction, curbside retail pickup, drive-through and drive-in events to resume operations effective Monday morning at 6 a.m., under social distancing guidelines.

The decision was made to allow these businesses to get up and running again because the data on COVID-19 hospitalizations suggests the state has made enough progress to do so safely.

CORONAVIRUS: NY Health Dept. | NY Call 1-(888)-364-3065 | NYC Health Dept. | NYC Call 311, Text COVID to 692692 | NJ COVID-19 Info Hub | NJ Call 1-(800)-222-1222 or 211, Text NJCOVID to 898211 | CT Health Dept. | CT Call 211 | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Based on reports from the 24 hours prior to Saturday morning, New Jersey confirmed another 1,239 cases of COVID-19 coronavirus infections, with an additional 115 deaths caused by related illnesses - putting the total at 145,089 cases and 10,249 fatalities.

On Thursday, Murphy announced beaches and lakefront communities would have limited reopening under social distance guidelines next week ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.

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