By Alexander Manzanares

During this pandemic of COVID-19, a lot of problems occurred to places in New Jersey such as the closing most of the stores, restaurants, parks, festivals, schools, amusement parks and beaches and now the people of New Jersey are not able to go out a lot. The government had a difficult decision to make and had no other choice in doing these things, even though many think it took away some of our liberty.

Since the thought of people going out without masks or gloves means that there would have been more people infected in New Jersey, causing the number of deaths to increase more. Since Governor Murphy decided to close some stores or restaurants in New Jersey a lot of people lost jobs and are unable to earn money since they do not have any job and many jobs are either closed or are not hiring anyone. This is a problem for them.

Even though the governor closed most of the stores and restaurants he decided with the other government officials to give out money to the people and even the NJ Labor department decided to help to and give them their payment. Murphy has said, “Independent contractors and others who are not usually eligible for unemployment insurance benefits will start being notified of their PUA eligibility today, and the Department will begin making payments Friday.” This is saying that they would help those who are part of the PUA and others that are not eligibility would be able to become eligibility by them and get paid too.

Now that time has passed Governor Murphy decided to open some restaurants and bars but are required to adhere to some strict measures if they want to remain open. According to NJ.com, “Restaurants and bars are open but have been ordered by Murphy to not accept dine-in customer takeout and delivery services can offered on a limited basis and establishment that survive alcohol will be provide a waiver for carrying out alcohol.”

This test will tell us that now he have to follow the rules and respect it since we have to be six feet away from each other wearing mask and gloves to avoid any infection.

As the virus kept going and the number of people getting infected or dying from it was rising, Governor Murphy also decided for schools to be closed first for two weeks in order for the kids to stay safe and not get infected. Now they are closed for the rest of the year and we still do not know about summer programs or even next year, though the plan is for schools to reopen as normal in September.

“Murphy and New Jersey school officials are expected to provide more details on getting kids back to school and resuming summer camps and daycare.” This is saying that schools will not be open back again soon. We are now in June and students are not able to graduate like others did, which shows that schools being open is mostly likely not going to happen soon.

School will not be open until Murphy decides, so the only thing to do now is for every student to do their work at home and keep learning so they can keep going with their education and be able to go onto the next grade. One day this will all be just a bad memory, though it is more serious for the class of 2020.

Students and stores are affected. During the pandemic in New Jersey, most stores are now finally being reopened. There are strict rules though. Stores are only allowed to be opened for a certain amount of time, so they close a lot earlier than before. As the pandemic of COVID-19 keeps going, some cities still have curfews from 8 p.m. up to 5 a.m. in the morning, so now the schedule of the stores, restaurants and bars have changed so they would have to close much earlier than before.

While many think that it is unnecessary, other businesses that have been severely affected by the closed business orders are recreational. They have changed a lot, because no one is thinking about going out for fun right now. Anyone who has a business that is related to parks, golfing, fishing and swimming have been finally reopened again, but as before with many restrictions.

The rules from Murphy are as before, social distancing, mask wearing and limited access. “New Jersey state and county parks and golf courses may reopen May 2 in the first major change to the near-lockdown,” according to NJ.com.

During this pandemic, going to stores, restaurants or any commercial place has become stricter here in New Jersey, since now I think Governor Murphy decided that only few people can go inside places, like only five or six at time – even two in small places. When it comes to big places such as Costco, Walmart, Walgreen and Shoprite, at least 10 or 15 people at a time which is something new they do since they don’t want any more people to get infected.

Right now not much has changed only that some stores are being reopened again but few people can go in with masks and gloves also schools are still closed and students keep doing work on the computer most people got their job back which now they are able to gain more money but that’s pretty much it of what the governor of New Jersey is doing and making his choices.

Only time will tell if these things helped the people or just prevented us from graduating.