TRENTON, NJ – When Lando Calrissian made a deal with Darth Vader to give up Luke Skywalker to save his criminal enterprise operating out of Bespin’s Cloud City in Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, he lamented several times after the Sith Lord changed the terms of the deal.
Now, the same appears to be happening in New Jersey as Phil Murphy’s rescinding of the statewide public school mask mandate is coming with strings attached after being announced last week as black and white.
Last week, Murphy said he will end the mask mandate on March 7th. Since then, the NJEA has come out to require numerical benchmarks and guidance to create policy for local districts, essentially taking the ultimate decision out of local school boards and back to state guidance.
Now, Murphy on Wednesday said that there are more strings attached. Murphy said he wants to have language in the deal that will allow him to reimplement a mask mandate after the mandate is rescinded.
Murphy eluded that an unmasking kill switch needs to be in place before the mandate expires March 7th.
“We have to leave as an option on the table – although please, God, we don’t have to ever exercise it – the right to reinstate this if we get clobbered again,” Murphy said Wednesday. “I would say we wouldn’t be taken this state if we – we wouldn’t be taking this step, rather, if we felt we weren’t on that please, God, pandemic to endemic journey. You hope that just doesn’t have to come back.”