A package of bills to assist microbusinesses, child care providers, restaurants, bars, other food and beverage establishments, businesses and nonprofits, startups, and the “Sustain and Serve NJ” program, which effectively pays restaurants to prepare meals for some of the state’s most in-need residents, will be administered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

New Jersey is embarking on what Gov. Phil Murphy has described as the “most aggressive” reopening measures taken in the pandemic thus far on Wednesday. Here's what that means.

The legislation keeps in place 14 separate executive orders signed since the onset of the pandemic, keeping in effect a variety of powers granted to Gov. Phil Murphy including regarding moratoriums for evictions and utility shut-offs, hospital data-sharing on COVID-19 numbers, face-covering mandates, heightened workplace safety standards, and vaccines.

Treasury officials are gauging how to use federal COVID-relief funds to pay back some of the state’s most expensive debt, following guidance from the Biden administration that could specifically prohibit the practice.

The new rules go into effect immediately and mirror similar guidelines put out by the CDC that fully vaccinated people can freely travel across the nation without testing or self-quarantine.

The governor said the state is not at a place where it can afford to remove the mandate and that businesses cannot be forced into the position of policing usage and discerning vaccinated from unvaccinated customers, an especially daunting task given that "the majority of New Jerseyans are still unvaccinated."

Four alumni who currently work for Pfizer at its Pearl River, N.Y., facility experienced first-hand the excitement of the company’s announcement last fall that its mRNA vaccine was 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 infections. And not only do the graduates have their college and workplace in common, they also studied under Professor Paramjeet Bagga, a co-founder of the Bioinformatics program at the New Jersey public liberal arts school.

For the first time since its inception during last fall’s COVID surge, the New Jersey Hospital Associations color-coded guide shows that more visitors are allowed as cases of the virus decline.

MetLife Stadium may be able to seat a full house after the season starts on Sept. 9 if the federal Centers for Disease Control shrinks its social distancing recommendations and New Jersey follows suit, as the governor has said it would.

“This approval would be a big step for the health not just of our state broadly, but for our school communities,” Gov. Phil Murphy said during a daily COVID-19 press briefing.

Gov. Phil Murphy’s announcement that he was taking the “most aggressive steps” on reopening so far in the pandemic generated considerable excitement among business owners. But some groups question whether employers will be able to scale up to meet demand once the restrictions are eased. And public health experts worry that the state might be jumping the gun.

“We want to get New Jersey on the right track to a new normal and to do that we need to ensure that all New Jerseyans who want to receive the COVID-19 [vaccination] have access to it,” reads a statement from the sponsor of the legislation, Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-37th District.