New Jersey Lifting School Mask Mandate In March

New Jersey will lift its statewide school mask mandate next month, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday.

“Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy,” the Democrat tweeted. “But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations.”

The mandate, which has required all students and school employees to wear masks on campus, is scheduled to lift March 7.

The numbers of new COVID-19 cases in New Jersey have dropped more than 70% in the past two weeks. It’s one of the most vaccinated states, with nearly three-quarters of all people in the state considered “fully vaccinated” and about one-third having received a booster dose.

Delaware’s Gov. John Carney (D) also announced Monday that his state’s school mask mandate will expire March 31 and that schools and school districts will be able to consider their own masking rules going forward. He urged parents to vaccinate their eligible children in the pursuit of returning to normalcy at schools.

“For all the parents out there — the best way to keep your child in school learning, and to prevent them from getting sick, is to get them vaccinated,” he said in a statement. “It’s that simple. I want to thank all Delawareans for taking this threat seriously.”

Mask mandates, particularly those in schools, have firmly divided Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Blue state leaders have cited widespread masking as an effective tool at reducing the spread of COVID-19 and followed a more cautious route amid the threat of new variants. Some GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, have gone so far as to ban local governments and school districts from enacting mask ordinances.

With COVID-19 cases plummeting after reaching staggering new levels in mid-January, Murphy and other Democrats are now signaling some optimism about the state of the pandemic. Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) ended his statewide school mask mandate and said schools could set their own rules. The Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut said last week they are similarly reevaluating their states’ school masking rules.