School Mask Mandate In Livingston: Superintendent To Give Update Soon

LIVINGSTON, NJ — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's announcement on Monday that the state's mask mandate for schools will be lifted in March — leaving it up to individual districts to make a decision — has resulted in debates and strange behavior at school board meetings, including mask protestors ordering pizzas in the middle of a Westfield meeting this week.

Livingston Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matthew Block has not yet issued a decision on mandating masks in the public schools, but a spokesperson said Thursday that he may be releasing a message about the issue some time on Friday.

As of now, students will still have to mask up on school buses even after March 7.

Around Essex County, districts have given varied responses. The South Orange-Maplewood district has not made a decision and will be looking at local COVID data before they decide, that district said in a public statement on Tuesday.

Case Trends In Livingston And Statewide

As of Thursday, according to the county of Essex, there were 15 new COVID cases confirmed since the day before in Livingston, and a death toll of 100 from COVID since the start of the pandemic.

People can get information about Essex County testing, vaccines, and boosters here.

Cases have started to come down in North Jersey since spiking after the holidays, but more than 250 COVID patients were still on ventilators at the state's hospitals to start the week. See specific data below.

Hospitalizations And Ventilator Use Starting To Drop

In New Jersey as of Thursday, the state's 71 hospitals said they were treating 1,708 patients for COVID, 212 of those requiring breathing help from ventilators. A week ago, on Friday, Feb. 4, the state's hospitals were treating 2,409 patients who tested positive for COVID. Of those patients, 294 were on ventilators.

Those numbers were nearly half of what was reported two weeks before that. On Friday, Jan. 21, the state's 71 hospitals reported that they were treating 4,826 COVID positive patients. At the time, 511 patients were getting breathing help from a ventilator.

For comparison's sake, back in September 2021, 124 people were on ventilators in New Jersey hospitals.

In America, more than, 900,000 people have died of COVID since the start of the pandemic. The daily death rate is highest right now in these states.

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