Maplewood Reinstates Mask Mandate For Indoor Businesses, Buildings

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — Maplewood Township announced Wednesday that the Township Committee has approved a mandate for people to wear masks in all indoor settings, except while eating. This mandate applies to both businesses and public settings, for everyone over 2, the town announced.

Also, anyone attending a township-sponsored event, or a private event in a town building open to the public, must show vaccination proof for people 5 and over or proof of a negative COVID-19 test from the past 72 hours.

There are exceptions to the mask mandate for those who have a medical exemption.

Additional details on each of these changes can be found here: https://www.twp.maplewood.nj.us/covid-19-resource-portal/urgent-alerts/m....

In addition, the South Orange-Maplewood School District announced Wednesday afternoon that it will start the new year with remote education, due to rising COVID-19 cases.

As COVID-19 cases rise around the state amid the highly transmissible omicron variant, the COVID dashboard for the South-Orange Maplewood schools showed Monday that cases had doubled in the last week over the previous two weeks.

The weekly case tracking chart showed 45 cases as of Friday, which is more than all cases in November combined.

In America, as of Sunday, 806,000 Americans have died of COVID since the start of the pandemic. The daily death rate is highest right now in Michigan, Montana, Arizona, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Read the state rankings here.

READ MORE: Omicron Variant Makes Up 13 Percent Of NJ/NYC COVID Cases

Other COVID Information

• Scientsts studying the new Omnicron variant — identified first in a sample in South Africa last month — say it's more transmissible than some variants but are unsure so far how effective vaccinations are against it. More studies will be done.

• The CDC estimates that more than 140,000 children have lost a close caregiver to the virus.
• Vaccinations now been recommended by the CDC for adults and for children 5 and over.
• Read the statement about Omicron and find links to get tested or vaccinated in New Jersey with this link.

New Jersey has launched a "vaccine appointment finder," which can be found here.

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