Cranford Kids Can Retrieve Items From School Monday

CRANFORD, NJ — The Cranford School District announced Friday that schools would close beginning Monday, March 16. Superintendent Scott Rubin said the buildings will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday so students could get their belongings. He said it was hard to know when they will reopen, although lesson plans had been created through March 27.

This past weekend, many local towns took other steps to slow the spread of the disease, particularly encouraging "social distancing." Westfield announced on Sunday that its downtown businesses would limit foot traffic.

To keep up with the latest, you can get breaking news in Cranford and statewide signing up for free Patch alerts and daily newsletters.

On Sunday, Gov. Phil Murphy said that at least 98 people statewide had been confirmed with the virus, an increase of 31 over the day before. He said he would likely make an announcement Monday about closing schools statewide.

Several local towns announced their first cases of the virus over the weekend, including Westfield and Summit.

Experts say that the novel coronavirus, because it's new, is more lethal and harder to treat than the flu.

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that include the common cold as well as much more serious diseases. The strain that emerged in China in late 2019, now called COVID-19, is related to others that have caused serious outbreaks in recent years, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Got a local news tip? Email caren.lissner@Patch.com.