Ayyyeee… What’s Goodie Everyone. So I got some tea and it involves the N.J governor and the end to it’s states mask mandate.
N.J Governor Philip Murphy a Democrat; will not require students and school employees to wear masks, signaling a deliberate shift toward treating the coronavirus as a part of daily life. Murphy, the vice chairman of the National Governors Association, on Sunday said that he would officially announce the elimination of the mandate on Monday afternoon. The new policy will take effect the second week of March.
Murphy’s move follows a decision that was made last month by the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, to resind his state’s school mask mandate. The Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut also said that they were re-evaluating school mask mandates that are soon set to expire.
Last week, after meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House during an annual governors conference, Murphy suggested it was time to reconsider how to manage the virus. “The overwhelming sentiment on both sides of the aisle, is we want to get to a place where we can live with this thing in as normal a fashion as possible.”
New Jersey is among 11 states which includes many of the country’s most populous, Democrat-led regions, that have made mask wearing mandatory for all students. This means that close to 65 percent of the country’s 500 largest school districts have either full or partial mask requirements, according to the technology company Burbio, which tracks how schools have fared during the pandemic. To limit the spread of the virus to classmates, teachers and relatives, students in New Jersey have been required to wear masks since September 2020, when most schools reopened after a four month lockdown.
Murphy’s decision comes less than two months after the Omicron variant began cutting a fresh path of destruction across the country. Last month’s spike in new infections caused widespread staffing shortages at hospitals, airlines and schools, forcing districts to temporarily shift to all virtual instruction.
Murphy has required teachers to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing; he has not required school employees to receive a booster shot.
A spokesman for the New Jersey’s largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, said the union would have no comment until after Murphy officially announced the change on Monday.
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