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Dr. Stanley Weiss, a professor of biostatistics & epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health, called it a politically motivated decision.

\"Gov. Murphy's decision is a politically-based one because there is tremendous pressure coming upon everyone to get rid of the pandemic and stop talking about it and stop dealing with it because we're all tired of this pandemic,\" he told ABC News. \"It is not scientifically based and I don't think it is a rational approach based upon what we're still seeing.\"

According to Patch New Jersey, in-school transmission in the state has increased over the past month.

Between Jan. 4 and Jan. 10, there were 11 cases among students and 17 cases among staff. However, between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31, there were 398 cases among students and 57 among staff.

\"I have problems with the change in policy,\" Weiss said. \"Yes, it's a limited number of cases, but if you look over time, the new outbreaks have been continuing to increase in schools. The number of student cases and staff cases has not declined. It hasn't gone away.\"

\"PHOTO:
Mary Altaffer/AP, FILE
PHOTO: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy talks to students in a pre-K class at the Dr. Charles Smith Early Childhood Center, Sept. 16, 2021, in Palisades Park, N.J
>

In Illinois, some districts have already made mandates optional after a judge ruled school districts statewide cannot require students to wear masks in classrooms.

\"If data were driving these decisions, we wouldn't at all remove mask mandates right now,\" said Carnethon. \"The school districts in the regions of Illinois that are making this optional appear to be closely aligned with the geopolitical sentiment.\"

Carnethon said districts where schools mask mandates are being removed are typically ones with limited testing ability and \"limited enthusiasm\" for policies such as requiring vaccinations in public spaces.

\"These communities continue to be high-district transmission communities. These are the very decisions that are going to prolong the pandemic and lead to far more suffering than we need to have happen,\" she said.

Those in favor of ending the mandates in schools say the public health focus needs to shift to learning to live with COVID-19 and more attention should be given to individual choice.

An increase in cases isn't necessarily a bad thing due to children's low risk of severe illness, according to some experts. Others, like Dr. Julia Raifman, disagree.

\"I think cases are a problem,\" Raifman, an assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health who researches state-level policy responses to the pandemic, told ABC News.

\"PHOTO:
Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: Demonstrators gather during a student walkout over COVID-19 safety measures at Chicago Public Schools in Chicago, Jan. 14, 2022.
>

She continued, \"Cases are a problem because more cases do mean more hospitalizations and deaths. There's no way around that. More cases mean more missed work and more missed school. More cases mean more people with lingering symptoms. More cases mean more of the unknown health impacts 10 years later.\"

Raifman added that school mask mandates should not disappear completely and that one way to keep them in place is to have more outdoor class time for kids because masks are not recommended for outdoors and students and teachers could take a break from wearing face coverings.

She gave the example of Nevada, which has a policy that enacts mask mandates when cases in a county are high.

\"If people are really eager for them to end, I recommend that they not end them, that they put in place a data-driven approach that turns on the mask policies when we need them when there are big surges,\" Raifman said.

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