Mask Mandate In Maplewood Schools: District Releases Statement

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — In response to Gov. Phil Murphy's announcement on Monday that the state's mask mandate for schools will be lifted in March, South Orange-Maplewood and other districts have been weighing local data and community input to determine whether they will keep local mandates in place.

The South Orange-Maplewood district has not made a decision and will be looking at local COVID data to make a decision about next month, the district said in a public statement on Tuesday.

"We began our mask mandate prior to the governor's mandate," said the statement, "and will continue to work with our Departments of Health to monitor our available local scientific data and act accordingly to keep everyone as safe as possible."

The district added, "While we understand the anxiousness that the governor’s recent announcement brings, at this time we cannot provide specificity on how this may be implemented for our district in March. Further communication will be sent to the district community once we determine the best plan of action for our school community."

As of Tuesday, according to the county of Essex, there was one new COVID case confirmed since the day before in Maplewood, and two in South Orange.

There have been 44 COVID deaths among Maplewood residents since the start of the pandemic, and 21 in South Orange.

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 are still on ventilators at the state's hospitals. See specific data below.

State Levels

In New Jersey as of Friday, Feb. 4, the state's 71 hospitals said they were treating 2,409 patients who tested positive for COVID. Of those patients, 294 were on ventilators.

Those numbers are nearly half of what was reported two weeks earlier. 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.

Back in September, for comparison's sake, 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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