TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has extended the COVID-19 public health state of emergency order once again. This marks the thirteenth time the governor has extended the 30 day period required to declare a public emergency. The governor said his action was necessary in order to continue distributing vaccines to the public.
“I have signed an Executive Order extending for another 30 days the current public health emergency initially declared on March 9th, 2020,” Murphy said. “As we have noted many times before, unless extended these emergency orders expire after 30 days. Today’s action means that we could continue our ongoing COVID-19 mitigation efforts while also vaccinating New Jersey residents as quickly and safely as possible.”
The governor said the Department of Health’s ability to regulate the distribution of the vaccine especially is linked to the declaration of a public health emergency.
“Failing to extend the public health emergency would threaten our vaccination effort, just as we expect our vaccine supply to exponentially increase over the next few weeks. And of course, the faster we can get more New Jersey residents vaccinated, the faster we can end this pandemic and get back to normal,” he added.
The latest executive order extends all Executive Orders issued under the Governor’s authority under the Emergency Health Powers Act. It also extends all actions taken by any Executive Branch departments and agencies in response to the Public Health Emergency presented by the COVID-19 outbreak.