Supporting Vaccination, Parent Choice: Ciattarelli's COVID Plan

NEW JERSEY — When COVID-19 plans are brought up, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli is quick to point out that he is vaccinated and supports vaccines. The speedy response is part of his tactic to get ahead of incumbent Phil Murphy who has tried to peg Ciattarelli as a right-wing extremist.

Ciattarelli has said he agrees with Murphy's plan for school teachers in the state, offering a choice between vaccination and bi-weekly COVID tests. He has stressed that what he does not support is "inconsistency." Ciattarelli believes parents should have the choice on whether to mask their children in school, and opposes vaccine mandates. Instead, Ciattarelli said he believes his duty as governor is to offer as much information to the public as possible and allow them to make their own decision.

“Do I believe that government has a right to tell people they have to take a medicine? No, I don't,” he said during the first debate of the race on Tuesday night.

Ciattarelli has made controversial statements in the past regarding COVID — he previously said, “children are not vulnerable to this virus," which came back to haunt him at the first debate. He clarified that he did not speak perfectly in the statement, but that his view is consistent with that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that children are generally not as susceptible to serious illness and death as adults are.

All 21 counties in New Jersey are deemed high risk for community transmission, and the new delta variant is dominating hospitalized COVID cases in the state. Ciattarelli has said that the delta variant differs from the COVID-19 the state dealt with last year, and it effects on children, and that the state should act accordingly.

Ciattarelli has made another focal point of his COVID response using federal funds to aid in pandemic recovery, including replacing ventilation systems in schools and replenishing the state's unemployment trust fund.

Ciattarelli has gone on the offensive when it comes to COVID response, attacking Murphy's policy that testing positive for COVID-19 was not grounds for being denied admission. He claims Murphy's policy is the reason nearly 8,000 people died in New Jersey nursing homes.

“His decisions killed veterans and seniors in our nursing homes: New Jersey leads the nation in nursing home deaths. As governor, I would never order nursing homes to take in COVID-19 patients,” Ciattarelli said at the Broadway Diner in Bayonne in August.

A recent Monmouth poll puts Murphy over Ciattarelli by 13 points at 51 percent to 38 percent. Read more here: Latest Poll: Murphy Has Big Lead, Ciattarelli Says Race Is Close

Voters said they trust Murphy more to handle the pandemic, by a margin of 53 percent to 23 percent. Ciattarelli's campaign spokesperson Stami Williams told Patch the campaign is focused on two other polls that were released, one by the Ciattarelli campaign and one by Club for Growth PAC, "that places the race in the margin of error."