PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Gov. Phil Murphy will lift the state's school mask mandate to protect against COVID-19 in schools and child care centers, his office said Monday.
Murphy plans to make masks optional starting March 7. The move comes as New Jersey's caseload drops after a spike around the holidays fueled by the omicron variant.
Murphy told The New York Times Monday morning that the change is deliberately timed for March because temperatures will start to warm up and schools will be able to open windows in classrooms to improve ventilation.
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During a COVID-19 update with state health officials Monday afternoon in Trenton, Murphy said schools will still have the option to require masks on their own. Students and staff may choose to continue to wear masks too, and districts would not be allowed to prevent them from doing so.
“This is a huge step back to normalcy for our kids,” he said. “We can responsibly take this step, given the continuing drop in new cases and hospitalizations from omicron and with all the evidence projecting a continued decline over the coming weeks.”
New Jersey was one of just a dozen states with mask mandates in schools, according to the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy. The mandate has been in place since school resumed in person in September 2020. Murphy renewed it before the start of the current school year and again, as recently as January. At the time, he didn't specify how much longer the requirement could be in place.
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He faced pressure from Republicans and some parents who want to rescind the requirement. But the governor has had support from the influential New Jersey Education Association, the state's biggest teachers union.
The NJEA said in a statement it was “cautiously optimistic that the current statewide school mask mandate can be safely relaxed in the near future, assuming current trends continue,” adding that it is “appropriate … to allow local districts to continue to require masking in communities where that is prudent based on local conditions.”
The New Jersey Department of Health is working on updating its guidance to help school districts decide when masks should be worn.
Murphy noted lifting the school mask mandate was not a declaration of victory, just an acknowledgment that the state is beginning to learn how to live with the virus as it moves from the pandemic to the endemic phase.
“We are optimistic that given the decreased severity of this new variant and the continued increase in vaccinations, we are finally nearing this inflection point.”