Will ‘shelter in place’ happen here?

On Monday, San Francisco’s mayor ordered nearly 7 million people in six Bay Area counties to “shelter in place” to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The words alarmed many people around the country, including in South Florida, who envisioned their own governments enacting similar measures to trap them like prisoners.

By Friday, the entire state of California as well as New York and Illinois committed to similar measures. But so far, leaders in Florida seem averse to doing the same.

“At the end of the day, I can issue a mandate, but if the local communities’ folks don’t want to enforce it, then it’s toothless,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference on Friday.

DeSantis said he believes smaller measures reached collaboratively with local leaders are more effective than sweeping ones. “I want to do things that will be followed,” he said. “If you go too hard, then I think people lose confidence and they rebel against it.”

The divide at the local level to a “shelter in place” measure was apparent.

“We’re not there yet, and I don’t know whether we need to go there,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said on Friday.

Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine disagreed. “I really think people ought to be sheltering in place as much as they can,” he said.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus, already suggested residents should stay home. “I urge you in the strongest terms to shelter in place to the extent possible and to avoid any and all unnecessary interactions with others,” he said in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday.

Reality check

While the words “shelter in place” might send a shiver down the spines of residents, those in the Bay Area who have been living under the measures for nearly a week describe practices that for the most part are already in place in South Florida.

Thomas Hardy, who lives 20 minutes outside of Oakland, California, said that when the rules were first rolled out, he heard of people calling the police on others who were walking their dog or pushing a stroller outside. “A lot of people were confused if that was allowed,” he said. “But it is.”

Hardy, 45, said many people heard the words “shelter in place” and “paid attention to the term, not what was really outlined as far as what we can and can’t do.”

According to the San Francisco order, everyone is required to stay home except to get groceries or food, care for a relative or friend, go to the doctor or go to an essential job.

But people aren’t trapped in their homes. The order states they can go outside for walks, runs or bike rides, but shouldn’t do so in a group and should stay 6 feet apart. Like in South Florida, restaurants and cafes still offer takeout and delivery services. All other nonessential businesses, such as bars, gyms and concert halls, are closed entirely.

Charley Locke, an Oakland resident, said that although she’s stayed away from friends and her elderly parents, she has still been on runs this week, while keeping her distance from others. She said the measures have made working from home a new challenge for some, and forced others to lose their jobs. But she said leaving the house is still an option and reported people walking in pairs along a lake outside her window.

What’s the term?

On Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he planned to sign an order that would close nonessential businesses and keep most workers home.

He didn’t reveal a name for the order in a morning news conference, but he did say what it won’t be called.

“It is not a shelter in place order.”

Cuomo said the words make people scared because they are generally used during active shooter or school shooting situations.

But Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman for the MiamiDade Police Department, said that isn’t the case in Florida.

Here, hurricanes force people to shelter in place. “A lot of times we’ll use that vocabulary if the winds are picking up or something like that,” Zabaleta said.

Robert Drago, a former lieutenant colonel with the Broward Sheriffs Office, said that ultimately the terminology isn’t all that important to the police officers who would enforce such a measure.

“Everybody will come up with their own term,” he said. “At the end of the day, it means stay home and stay away from everybody.”

He said that in South Florida police officers already do this sort of work during hurricane season. Rather than arresting people, he said, officers have to persuade people to evacuate their homes or get off the beach.

Robert Rueca, spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said police in the Bay Area can issue misdemeanor citations to those who break the new “shelter in place” rules. But so far, he said, they’ve avoided that. “We’re trying to take a more compassionate approach.”

He said there are a lot of gray areas in the order that officers have to untangle on the streets. “What is essential travel to one person can be argued as non-essential to another,” he said.

Their job, he said, is mostly to encourage people to say home. “The we way we put it is: limit your exposure so you don’t get ill,” he said.

Police agencies in South Florida did not say what enforcing a formal “shelter in place” order could look like. Therese Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office said the question was “too early to answer.”

Zabaleta said the Miami Police Department has made arrangements to have more officers on hand in recent days, but right now they are focused on their normal duties as well as enforcing the orders that have already been made by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giménez to close nonessential businesses, parks and beaches.

Zabaleta said that as far as he knows there are no plans to increase enforcement.

“Will that change later? It could.”