2 Years Of COVID In NJ: How Has Your Life Changed?

NEW JERSEY - It's been almost two years since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic, and March 4 marks the two-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 case in the Garden State.

In the time since then, schools have changed how they operated, businesses found new ways to survive and people used new methods of communicating and socializing. Patch is looking for New Jersey residents to share their stories of the early pandemic.

Are you a restaurant owner who was able to survive because of customer donations? Are you a first responder or health care worker who wants to share what your job was like, and how it's changed? Do you live on a block that came together and found ways to remain a tight-knit community, at a bit of a distance?

We've created a survey asking how the pandemic has affected you, click here to fill out the survey. If you are willing to talk to an editor, you can share your contact information with a Patch reporter by contacting nicole.rosenthal@patch.com; it will be kept confidential.

Please share our survey with friends, neighbors, your favorite businesses or in your community groups. The survey will be open for roughly one week.

In a sign that the country is shifting to living with the virus, the Biden administration loosened federal COVID-19 mask guidance Friday as infection rates return to pre-omicron variant levels around the country.

The change means most Americans live in areas where federal guidelines say they're not required to wear masks indoors.

There have been more than 1.87 million cases of the coronavirus in New Jersey since the first case March 4, 2020, and as of Friday, 30,031 people are confirmed to have died as a result of COVID-19 complications. Read more: COVID's 2-Year Anniversary: See NJ Pandemic Life In Photos

On Friday, Murphy signed an executive order formally ending the last major mitigation requirements that have been in place since March 2020.

That includes removing masking mandates for schools, "the last major mitigation measure we had in place," Murphy said Friday in his final coronavirus briefing.

"As the coronavirus moves from pandemic to endemic and as we transition away from crisis management to a more normal way of life, it is the right time," Murphy said. "We're ready to move forward and not live our lives in fear."

While transmission rates and positivity rates have fallen to low levels in New Jersey, the coronavirus crisis continues to be labeled a pandemic by the World Health Organization, as globally the virus continues to sicken millions and continues to evolve, according to an Al-Jazeera report.

"Defining endemic is still a work in progress," said Dr. Christina Tan, New Jersey's state epidemiologist, who said the severity of illness in the community — hospitalizations and deaths — are looked at more closely in how the illness is viewed. "The concept of living with the virus encompasses that ongoing need for us to take the personal responsibility of understanding our risk ... and taking the measures to protect our health."

Here is a link to the survey.

With reporting by Karen Wall.