TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has officially asked the New Jersey legislature to extend a school mask mandate that is set to expire January 11th.
Murphy made it clear that he intends to keep students in K-12 school settings masked indefinitely on Monday.
“On Saturday, January 1st, I formally notified leadership in the senate and assembly respectively to extend for an additional 90 days our administration’s emergency powers related to vaccine distribution and administration, testing, and ensuring adherence to CDC guidance, particularly as it relates to masking in vulnerable settings, including our schools and childcare centers where we know there are large numbers of unvaccinated individuals,” Murphy said. “I also requested a 90-day extension for a number of administrative orders, directives, and waivers that have been issued by our departments and agencies in response to the pandemic. This request is, by the way, in accordance with the law I signed last June that allowed for the formal declaration of a public health emergency to expire while ensuring that our administration had the necessary authority to continue to fight the pandemic. I’m grateful for the attentiveness and partnership of senate president Steve Sweeney, assembly speaker Craig Coughlin to this request, and we will continue to work closely with them and with their leadership teams.”
Murphy said masking school children is vital to stop the spread of the omicron virus “tsunami”.
“This Omicron tsunami has changed the game yet again. We cannot summarily give up the fight. We need to remain on a war footing to ensure that we can get resources to where they need to be and when they need to be there, and yes, this means that we anticipate our kids having to wear masks in their schools for now in order to protect their health and safety and ensure that they can continue in-person learning,” the governor said Monday. “This brings us absolutely no joy. No one wants to see our kids’ smiles more than I do, but this is what is necessary now to keep our schools safe, and I’ll have more on those efforts in a few minutes. With the exponential surge in our numbers, it would be the height of irresponsibility to lift these basic public health requirements at this time, and I and we will not let that happen.”