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Law360 (October 21, 2020, 3:14 PM EDT ) New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy will be quarantining over the next few days as two members of his senior staff have tested positive for COVID-19, but the governor himself came back negative for the disease Wednesday afternoon, Murphy representatives said.
With the rate of COVID-19 infections climbing in the Garden State, the governor's office issued separate statements Wednesday about the infections of Mike Delamater, deputy chief of staff for intergovernmental affairs, and Daniel Bryan, senior adviser to the governor for strategic communications.
Murphy spokesman Mahen Gunaratna first announced the governor would quarantine after an unnamed senior staffer had recently tested positive, saying in a statement that the individual is quarantining at home and a process is underway "to notify everyone who may have come into contact with our colleague during the potential infection window." Gunaratna later said the staffer is Delamater.
"Out of an abundance of caution and in line with the highest levels of commitment to protecting public health, the governor and first lady will be canceling their in-person events and voluntarily quarantining through the end of the weekend, and each will take an additional COVID-19 test before they resume any in-person engagements," Gunaratna said in the statement.
The Democratic governor was negative for COVID-19 on Monday as part of his regular testing, Gunaratna said. Murphy and his wife also tested negative Wednesday afternoon, Gunaratna said.
"From the beginning, the governor's office has taken every precaution to limit the spread of COVID-19. Today's exceedingly cautious steps are part of that ongoing commitment," Gunaratna said.
Less than three hours later, the governor's office released a statement about Bryan's diagnosis, saying he tested positive Wednesday afternoon. Bryan "took the test out of an abundance of caution and remains asymptomatic," the statement read.
"The contact tracing process is underway, and anyone, including members of the press, believed to have exposure as defined by [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines will be notified," the statement read.
The senior staffers' positive test results mark at least the second and third times that the coronavirus has made its way into the governor's inner circle.
In April, the governor's office said Murphy's then-chief counsel, Matt Platkin, tested positive for COVID-19. Platkin was slated to step down this month to become a Lowenstein Sandler LLP partner. He will be replaced by deputy chief counsel Parimal Garg.
The latest developments come as COVID-19 cases in New Jersey have ticked upward after months of slowing down. As of Wednesday, there were 223,223 total cases, with 14,456 confirmed deaths and 1,789 probable deaths, state officials said.
--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.
Update: This article has been updated with the news a second staffer has tested positive.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
