COURT HOUSE – As Gov. Phil Murphy promises to end the Covid school and child care mask mandates, the state enters a new period of response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, one of accommodation.
The movement from pandemic to endemic virus presence will not be smooth and without problems, but that appears to be the step the state is preparing to take – living with the virus.
This week, Murphy said he would end the school and child care mask mandate March 7. True to form, the move was not without its critics. Some have accused the governor of bowing to political pressure before a vaccine is available for children under 5. Republicans in the state Legislature have demanded he end the mandate immediately. Murphy presents the decision as an attempt to return to some “semblance of normalcy.”
What is entirely unclear is what normalcy will look like two-plus years into a world-devastating pandemic that claimed over 900,000 U.S. lives, disrupted the world economy, led to serious learning loss in school children, and has now caused the highest inflation rates in three decades.
Here, in Cape May County, the Covid case numbers have plummeted. As of Feb. 6, the county had 475 total active community cases, down from 2,389 in mid-January. Hospitalizations are declining rapidly, as well, with Cape Regional Medical Center reporting five Covid positive patients Feb. 6, down from 44 Jan. 14.
Removing the mask mandate in the state’s schools is a major step in the direction of a strategy of accommodation to the virus. Murphy said he will keep the health emergency in place for another 30 days when he renews it later this week, but Murphy is now saying that New Jersey needs to learn to live with the virus.
“I do believe that we need to move from pandemic status and mode of operation to more endemic,” Murphy said this week.
The White House announced that 60 million households had ordered the government-provided, free, at-home Covid test kits. Public case counts and testing percentages will no longer account for the testing and results that health officials will never see.
The vaccine rollout will enter a final stage with vaccinations available for children under 5 possibly by the end of this month. Leading vaccine manufacturers are predicting a need for a fourth shot probably by fall.
Cape May County has approximately 72% of its population fully vaccinated, but only 42% of those have had the first booster shot.
Annual vaccination may become part of “living with the virus” and will be embraced by some and resisted by others.
Attention to any return to normalcy will require a period of recovery.
The job market is still in upheaval with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the pace at which workers quit their jobs remains at the highest level on record. Oddly, that brings a sense of security to some workers who economists say are less likely to lose their jobs than at any time in the last two decades.
School recovery will be a challenge. New statewide testing results of grades four through six show about half of the students need “strong support” to catch up in math skills. The tests also indicate that nearly one in three students beginning high school will need a high level of support in English.
The Start Strong exams were created after schools had begun shutting down during the pandemic. The results of the late 2021 tests have been released by the state. At least one in four students scored in the lowest category in both math and language arts.
Dealing with learning loss will be a major part of any return to normalcy in the schools. Academic recovery ranks high on Covid relief funds spending plans for school districts.
Future Ed, an independent “think tank” connected to Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy, recently looked at over 2,500 school district spending plans and found the major efforts at academic recovery centers around summer learning and after-school programs. Money will also go to recruiting additional teachers to facilitate small group learning environments.
These findings are consistent with what little we know of local district plans, most of which stress the same emphasis on summer and after-hour programs. Funds will also go to facilities improvements, which tend to be big-ticket items, but most survey data show academic recovery and school staffing to be the leading priorities.
The state Legislature has required the state Department of Education to track the spending of the relief dollars and to report on whether that spending results in academic recovery.
The first stage of learning to live with the virus may be dealing with the challenge of recovery from the disruptions of the pandemic, which will be no easy task.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.
