The midterm election has been like solitary confinement for Pennsylvania residents, like millions of other people across the United States.

News about the war in Ukraine, about North Korea’s increased boldness regarding its missile capabilities, and reports about efforts to combat this nation’s inflation problem — as well as a myriad of other significant issues either in this country or abroad — have been off center stage for weeks as the run-up to the election played out, then the election itself.

Now it is clear that issues related to the midterm ballot counting could drag on for weeks, months or longer — a troubling probability in the eyes of many people, especially those who had grown tired of polling results and other election-related developments long before last Tuesday.

A non-election development in New Jersey could “wake up” the election-weary, however.

In Pennsylvania, some of the “new news” that escaped many state residents was the General Assembly sending a bill to Gov. Tom Wolf to help attack the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s loss of tens of millions of dollars due to uncollected tolls, new requirements to notify victims of breaches of personal information and restoration of driving privileges for more than 6,000 people whose licenses were suspended for non-traffic violations.

Meanwhile, Wolf signed into law a measure revoking a ban on the use of fentanyl testing strips that had been considered drug paraphernalia.

For drug users, the strips are valuable to determine if drugs that they have obtained contain fentanyl, which is described as an extremely potent synthetic opioid.

Regarding the turnpike, the toll measure rightly lowers the threshold for triggering suspension of vehicle registrations for owners with unpaid tolls and fees.

Regarding data breaches, the new law provides but a one-week timetable for government agencies, as well as state contractors, to provide notification of a breach that can identity an individual.

Regarding the lifting of driver license suspensions, prior to the new law, people convicted of low-level drug crimes had been losing their licenses, even though their crimes had no direct link to driving.

What has come out of New Jersey, though, is far from being the stuff of slumber inducement. Rather, it is sobering and those descriptions might in fact be an understatement, considering the seriousness of the issue and the kind of victims.

Philadelphia’s WHYY News reported last month about Camden County, N.J., schools’ plan to install 250 emergency naloxone kits at 150 public and private schools in South Jersey to try to prevent overdose deaths.

The kits are to consist of metal boxes mounted onto school walls in areas with high foot traffic, with each box containing several doses of naloxone. WHYY reported that the $30,000 project is funded through a partnership involving the state Department of Public Health, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and local police departments.

A 12-year-old boy died earlier this year from a fentanyl overdose. He was found unresponsive on a school bus and was rushed to a hospital, where he died a week later.

It is sobering to imagine that amount of opioid reversal medication being regarded as necessary in any school system, even in big cities.