Will N.J. require COVID vaccines for students? Not now, but it remains ‘on the table,’ Murphy says. – NJ.com

Days after California became the first state to announce school children must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend in-person classes, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday he doesn’t expect New Jersey will take that step, though he also didn’t rule it out.

“I don’t anticipate we’re gonna need to do that, in terms of mandating the kids to have it,” Murphy said during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “But it’s an option, I think, we leave on the table.”

“We think we’ve got the right package for school in place,” added the Democratic governor, who is running for a second term Nov. 2. “We also acknowledge that as the weather starts to slip on us and we’re spending a lot more of our lives inside, including in schools, we may see some bumps. But we think this is the right package in place.”

New Jersey required schools return to all in-person classes this fall, with students and staff members in pre-school through 12th grade required to wear masks inside.

The state is also requiring all public and private school employees to be fully vaccinated against the virus or undergo regular testing by Oct. 18.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday the state will add COVID-19 vaccine to 10 other required immunizations for students to attend school there.

The mandate will be phased in as the U.S. government gives full approval for the vaccine to younger age groups. Currently, the Pfizer vaccine is authorized only for emergency use for children 12-17. Children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

“Vaccines work,” Newsom said.

There would be exemptions for religious or medical reasons.

Public school students in New Jersey are also already required to be vaccinated against numerous illnesses, such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox. The state allows parents to opt out for religious reasons.

Former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican challenging Murphy in the governor’s race, is against vaccine mandates and has said he would expand New Jersey’s vaccine exemptions for students if he’s elected.

“I don’t think government has any right to tell any individual they have to take a vaccine or a medicine,” Ciattarelli said in July.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has endorsed California’s move.

“People need to realize that having a vaccine requirement for schools is not a new, novel thing that is very peculiar or specific to COVID-19,” Fauci said during an interview Sunday on CBS. “We’ve been doing this for decades.”

Murphy also stressed Monday that New Jersey’s mask mandate in school isn’t “forever and always” because the state’s COVID-19 case count is “never gonna go to zero.”

“We’re not going to hold ourselves to a zero reality here,” the governor said. “We’re gonna make moves and make decisions based on what we think is a reasonable state of the virus.”

Ed Lifshitz, director of the state Department of Health’s communicable disease service, said he believes it will be safe to lift masks in schools “when either the virus is less common, the virus has become less deadly, or there are better prevention measures.”

New Jersey’s coronavirus numbers had been rising in recent months, though hospitalizations have remained relatively stable and the daily case average and rate of transmission have dipped in the last week.

The state on Tuesday reported another 1,255 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 37 more confirmed deaths, while there were 1,087 people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across the state as of Monday night.

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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @johnsb01.