Manchester Closes Township Offices To Public Amid COVID Spike

MANCHESTER, NJ — The continuing surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in New Jersey and in Ocean County has led Manchester Township officials to shut off public access to township-owned buildings for the time being.

The closure went into effect Friday and was announced in a Nixle alert Thursday evening.

Ocean County has added more than 1,000 new cases of the coronavirus since Saturday; there are 19,649 as of Friday morning, according to the Ocean County Health Department. In Manchester, the township has 1,225 cases as of Friday, an increase of 76 since Sunday, and four more Manchester residents have died since Sunday, putting the total at 170 deaths in the township.

Manchester closed its offices to the public in March for several weeks during the first wave of the virus, but reopened them in the summer as the number of cases lessened.

Statewide, there are 2,505 people hospitalized with the virus as of Friday, according to the state health department. There are 700 people hospitalized as of Friday, up from 527 on Sunday, in the Central region of the state, which includes Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean counites, according to the state health department.

Click here to get Patch email notifications, or get Patch breaking news alerts sent right to your phone with our app. Download here. Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com Follow Manchester Patch on Facebook.