“At present, the conditions are simply not favorable enough to reopen. The safety of our students and staff must come first,” Shafer said during Wednesday night’s special Paterson Board of Education meeting.
Shafer said the number of COVID cases in Paterson and Passaic County had increased by about 50% during the past month. The superintendent also said the number of school-linked outbreaks in the state has risen by 61% during that time.
“This uptick marks a localized peak in community transmission, similar in magnitude to what happened in April 2020 and again in November 2020," she said. “Unfortunately, new cases seem to on the rise even though nearly one in five adults in the state have now been fully vaccinated.”