PHILADELPHIA — New Jersey will lift its requirement for students and school staff to wear masks, according to the New York Times. The mandate will reportedly be eliminated the second week of March.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The governor is expected to announce the new policy at a COVID-19 briefing Monday afternoon at 1 p.m.
”The overwhelming sentiment on both sides of the aisle is we want to get to a place where we can live with this thing in as normal a fashion as possible,” Murphy said last week after meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House during an annual governors conference.
Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ended the commonwealth’s mask mandate for K-12 students, turning over the decision making to local school officials and citing the need “to prepare for a transition back to a more normal setting.”
Philadelphia students and staff continue to be required to wear masks. On Monday, those rules became stricter — students and employees must now either wear a well-fitted mask (such as a N95, KN94, or KN95) or a three-ply disposable masks. Cloth masks on their own are no longer allowed across the Philadelphia School District.
There are currently 14 states that require masks for K-12 students, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. That includes Delaware, which also has a mask mandate in place for all indoor public settings.
