Governor Phil Murphy didn’t say much new during a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper, but he did suggest the state might be “a couple of more weeks on the clock” from seeing the end of its indoor mask mandate.
Murphy also refused a direct question from Tapper: “what’s the benchmark gonna be to lift the mask restrictions?”
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“So it’s going to be a series of health data points,” Murphy said, citing variables like “spot positivity” but offering no specifics…
NJ’s @GovMurphy defends ignoring science on masks/continuing to penalize New Jerseyans who disobey his Covid edicts.
“We’re just not ready yet … If we can save only one more life by waiting a couple of weeks longer, I’ll sign up for that" pic.twitter.com/Khi11FdoRw
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 17, 2021
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We’ve heard the before, Phil. What numbers/levels/data are you waiting for?
Exactly?
How many cases? Hospitalizations?
Earlier in the day at his daily presser, Murphy used similar lines on state media and completely avoided the question: “We think we have this thing on the run and as it relates to public places we’re just not there yet.”
New Jersey reported only an average of 23 “new” cases on Monday per county.
As of this evening, only New Jersey and Hawaii are digging in their heels on masking for vaccinated persons. Illinois and New York – both of which contain densely-populated urban centers and suburbs – are ending their own mandates. California will end its own mandate on June 15th.
Texas – which has been maskless for months – reported zero deaths on Sunday; the Garden State reported 13 on Monday.
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