New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said Sunday his state is trying to stay ahead of the need for hospital beds and equipment as it grapples with the coronavirus pandemic. 

“We’re fighting to stay ahead on bed capacity, ventilators that are constantly running thin, the medicine you need for those ventilators, the personal protective equipment and the relief from the bullpen for our health care workers,” Murphy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “So we are every minute of every day on all of those fronts doing everything we can to stay out ahead of it.” 

New Jersey is one of the hardest hit states in the U.S. by the pandemic, second only to New York, with 58,151 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,183 deaths, based on state health data. 

Murphy closed schools down on March 18 and issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 21. 

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Murphy if New Jersey should have acted sooner than it did. 

“We acted, Jake, about as soon as any American state, along with Ohio, California, Washington, [and] New York,” Murphy responded. “Among the first and probably, as I sit here today, probably the tightest.”

Murphy added that the state will conduct a post mortem to evaluate the response. 

“The ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’ deserves an important focus. Right now, again, the house is on fire. We’ve got to put the fire on the house out and then we’ve got to begin to get back on our feet and then at that point we have to look back and say what could we have done differently,” Murphy said.

He also said the same needs to be done on the national level.