Murphy says ‘all options’ on the table for tighter vaccine rules

Gov. Phil Murphy said the state was still looking at other avenues to ramp up vaccination rates – be it the carrot or the stick – but stopped short of saying whether he would follow New York City and require the shot for most public activities.

On Aug. 3, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the vaccine will be required for patrons to take part in indoor activities such as indoor dining, gyms and performance venues.

“A lot of other options are on the table for us,” Murphy, who is running for reelection, told reporters following an unrelated event Wednesday morning in Union City.

Those routes would be “things in the general neighborhood of what New York City is doing,” according to Murphy.

“I saw this a lot … all options are on the table,” he continued.

The move in New York City came amid widespread vaccine hesitancy stifling efforts in the nation to build herd immunity. That’s allowed the highly contagious delta variant to spread like wildfire, almost exclusively among those who’ve refused to get the vaccine, with daily cases and total hospitalizations reaching their highest levels in months.

Murphy jabbed at several such vaccine opponents at the Aug. 3 press conference, where during his remarks the governor said to a crowd of anti-vaccination protestors that they “have lost their minds.”

“You are the ultimate knuckleheads,” Murphy said. “Because of what you’re saying and standing for, people are losing their lives … and you have to know that.”

Hitting herd immunity

On Aug. 2  Murphy announced that all health care and frontline workers – those working with vulnerable segments of the population – have until Sept. 7 to get the COVID-19 shot or submit to routine testing.

These include workers at county jails and correctional facilities, veterans homes, psychiatric centers, acute-care hospitals, specialty hospitals, developmental centers, long-term care and assisted-living facilities, short-term and post-acute in-patient rehabs, home health agencies, University Hospital, and all behavioral health care facilities.

Some of the largest hospital networks – Hackensack Meridian Health and RWJBarnabas – are already requiring the vaccine for workers. And Murphy has suggested that he could very well ramp up the vaccine requirements, be it to other workers in the private sector, and to state workers.

More than 5.3 million people who live, work or study in the state have gotten the shot since the first jabs were being given in December. Despite boasting some of the nation’s highest vaccination rates, the levels fell short of those needed to reach herd immunity to halt the spread of this new variant.

Murphy pushed for 70% of the adult-population by June 30, which was ultimately achieved.

“[T]he goal has always been to get to enough people who are immune [that] the virus can’t easily spread from person to person and propagate itself over time, what people sometimes call herd immunity,”  Dr. Ed Lifshitz, the state’s medical director, said on Aug. 2.

“There is no single, exact number that you can say – 70% is good, 72% is better … there’s no single exact number that you can put at it but the more infectious the virus is, the more people need to be immune to keep it from spreading around,” he said. “As the delta variant virus is more infectious, you need to have a higher percentage of people who are immune to keep it from spreading from person to person.”

Vaccines have become a political and cultural flashpoint, while rebounds in the virus have prompted the need for more restrictions.

After the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that masks should be worn indoors, regardless of vaccination status, whenever in a county with “high” or “substantial” transmission rates, Murphy said that masks are recommended for anyone at an indoor setting where transmission is a risk–virtually any place in public, but stopped short of making that a mandate.

Out of New Jersey’s 21 counties, only Warren County does not meet the CDC’s threshold.