TAMPA -- Hillsborough County's attorney told members of the county's Emergency Policy Group Monday that the Governor's stay at home order appears to require non-essential businesses to not allow the public inside.
After hearing an interpretation from attorney Christine Beck, County Commission Chair Les Miller declared that "non-essential businesses must close if they cannot work from home," while admitting that "we're about to make some other people unemployed also, and that's going to hurt people even more... our numbers (of jobless) are going to grow."
Members of the EPG discussed how best to get the word out to affected businesses. Beck pointed to Pinellas County, which issued a guidance document.
In other developments, Dr. Douglas Holt of the Health Department updated the numbers of COVID-19 patients in Hillsborough... 38 hospitalized, with 14 in intensive care, and 10 of those on ventilators.
Holt compared those numbers with Broward County, where 339 are hospitalized, with 100 in the ICU and 87 of those on ventilators. Holt says Hillsborough's infection rate is 0.4 per thousand, about one-fourth the rate in hard-hit Miami-Dade County.
School board chair Melissa Snively wondered whether the county should temporarily ban e-scooters and e-bikes because of the potential for spreading the virus.
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