Official Site of The State of New Jersey

New Jersey is modernizing its emergency planning systems to reflect the lessons of COVID-19 and prepare for a wider range of health-related threats. Looking ahead, the State remains focused on building a more agile, resilient, and collaborative planning infrastructure for future challenges.

Modernizing Outbreak Plans and Health Emergency Protocols

• The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) is updating the State’s High-Consequence Infectious Disease Plan (formerly Pandemic Influenza Plan). This includes broadening the scope beyond influenza to be inclusive of high-consequence infectious diseases and clearly defining the NJDOH leadership structure for command and control during a response. Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic informed revisions related to foundational preparedness capabilities. This includes considering medical surge and countermeasure protocols.
• The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM) preserves detailed operational plans from the COVID-19 response for Field Medical Stations, vaccination sites, and testing centers—now serving as templates for future response and shared with NJDOH to support broader pandemic planning. 
• Agencies have worked to update protocols. For example, the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner (OCSME) and NJOEM revised the State Fatality Management Plan and tested it through tabletop and full-scale exercises. These included protocols for Disaster Portable Mortuary Units deployments and county-level decedent storage. 
• NJOEM, in partnership with the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHSP), began a statewide review of agency-level emergency response plans in fall 2024.

Maintaining Readiness for Future Health Threats

• Drawing directly from lessons learned during the COVID-19 response, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management completed a major update of the State Emergency Operations Plan (SEOP) in January 2024. The revised plan reflects pandemic-era insights and strengthens protocols for intergovernmental coordination and federal alignment.
• NJOEM revised the State’s Hurricane Decision Support Tool and the Department of Transportation maintains statewide evacuation plans.
• Agencies also continue to provide guidance to non-governmental partners on a range of manmade and natural emergencies. For example, the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness maintains a resource guide for houses of worship.

Updating Roles and Responsibilities of Government Agencies

• NJDOH recently completed a strategic planning, reaccreditation, and reorganization process with aims to improve population health outcomes, advance health equity, modernize data infrastructure, strengthen health resiliency, and build sustainable emergency response capabilities. This included creating a new Division of Health Data and Analytics, reporting directly to the Commissioner, to centralize data capabilities to support evidence-based decision-making.
• NJDOH established the Office of Pandemic Planning & Response (PPR) within the Division of Disaster Preparedness, Resiliency, and Emergency Medical Services in January 2023. In addition to maintaining and updating the High-Consequence Infectious Disease Plan, this office brings together programs that had been developed as part of the COVID-19 response, such as medical countermeasures operations, for enhanced coordination.
• Through Executive Order No. 404, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHSP) was recodified to clarify its responsible for leading New Jersey’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence, cybersecurity, and related preparedness efforts, and for administering training programs to both state employees and private sector partners. This Executive Order also details OHSP’s emergency management functions to better reflect the separation of responsibilities between OHSP, the New Jersey State Police, and the Office of Emergency Management.

Supporting Health System Resiliency and Preparedness

• The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) continues to manage the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Hospital Preparedness Program to support statewide hospital readiness through guidance, technical assistance, and coordination. This is reliant on federal funding that the Trump Administration has put at risk.
• NJDOH also partners with New Jersey’s three Regional Healthcare Coalitions to convene ad-hoc meetings for situational awareness and response coordination during real-time crises.
• NJDOH participates with the Regional Emergency Special Pathogens Treatment Center (RESPETC) Program at NYC Health & Hospitals/Bellevue for special pathogens preparedness and response efforts in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. As part of this initiative, NJDOH provides funds to designated Level 2 and Level 3 health care facilities in New Jersey.  

Preserving Key Pandemic-Era Policy Reforms to Accelerate Response

• The Murphy Administration has sustained selected waivers through statutes and regulations. For example, the State embedded a pandemic-era waiver through enacting a law providing authority for pharmacy professionals to administer COVID-19 and influenza vaccines to children. The Department of Health is finalizing the first significant update in over a decade to Communicable Disease regulations, including enhancing protocols for disease and vaccination reporting. The Department of Health is also undertaking a study of telehealth policies and the State has extended temporary payment parity until mid-2026.
• To support future emergency response, the State continues repositories of executive and agency-level directives and materials developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

• Finalize the State’s High-Consequence Infectious Disease Plan and continue to evolve infectious disease preparedness planning in alignment with broader public health and emergency response strategies.
• Continue to conduct exercises to stress-test plans, refine roles, and strengthen coordination across public health partners to ensure coordinated execution in high-pressure situations.
• Continue iterating on the State Emergency Operations Plan (SEOP), including a focus on enhancing public-private coordination and information-sharing during emergencies.