During a visit to the site of New Jersey’s newest federally funded Covid-19 testing center in Orange, Governor Phil Murphy pledged “to do everything possible to keep kids safely and responsibly in-person in school.”

The governor’s comments come as New Jersey continues setting single-day records for Covid-19 infections – with 29,740 infections recorded Saturday alone – and after 34 school districts announced that they will be resuming school on Monday via remote instruction.

Governor Murphy said that he has no current plans to order school closures and that he wants to leave it up to individual school districts to decide whether their classes will be provided in-person, remotely, or on a hybrid schedule.

“We are working aggressively,” Murphy said, referring to his administration’s discussions with school districts.

The rising number of Covid-19 infections in both New Jersey and across the United States have raised concerns that lockdown similar to those imposed in early 2020 would be coming back. However, both local, state, and national authorities insist that we are no longer in the same precarious position as we were in March of last year, as we now proven therapeutics, lower hospitalization rates, and mostly mild infections.