Updated at 9:35 p.m.: Revised to include a stay-at-home order in Ellis County.

Collin County residents were ordered to stay home because of the coronavirus outbreak, effective immediately Tuesday. But businesses are being allowed to stay open — a major difference from Dallas County’s shelter-in-place order.

The order follows one in Dallas County that began at 11:59 p.m. Monday. But it stops short of that order, which closed all but essential businesses.

Collin County Judge Chris Hill signed his order Tuesday, which will last for seven days unless it’s renewed by the county’s Commissioners Court.

“It’s important that we keep people at work," he said.

Flanked by the mayors of McKinney, Frisco and Celina and other officials at a news conference Tuesday morning, Hill repeated several times: “All businesses and all jobs and all workers are essential.”

Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said the order will be updated as needed, adding that he didn’t see “overwhelming differences between what other counties and cities are doing” compared with Collin County.

The Collin order emphasized the local economy and keeping businesses open.

“All businesses, jobs and workers are essential to the financial health and well-being of our local economy and therefore are essential to the financial health and well-being of Collin County citizens,” the order said.

People who are employed need to stay employed, and people who aren’t employed need to find jobs, the order said.

“Businesses that are able to remain open need to remain open,” the order said.

Hill said any businesses — except entertainment businesses — can operate as long as people maintain social distancing and comply with the governor’s orders limiting gatherings to fewer than 10 people.

County spokesman Tim Wyatt offered theaters and event venues as examples of entertainment businesses that must close.

Where social distancing is not possible “in the normal course of business activities, extreme care should be taken to reduce the risk of exposure to, and transmittal of, germs and COVID-19,” according to the order.

McKinney Mayor George Fuller said Monday that Collin County cities had intended to adopt a shelter-in-place order similar to Dallas County’s.

He said mayors agreed they wanted to take some “aggressive actions” to slow the spread of coronavirus.

“Judge Hill did not agree with those more aggressive actions,” Fuller said, adding that he was still reviewing the county order, which he said left a lot to be clarified. “I believe there is a lot of confusion, and I understand the confusion based on the order as it was presented.”

He said he agreed with and appreciated the intent of the order: that the safety and health of residents should be the highest priority but that the county should maintain as much economic stability as possible.

“However, I want to make sure as a city that intent is not all that’s expressed but that clear, concise direction, policies, restrictions, orders are in place to ensure that intent is achieved,” Fuller said. “I do not believe there is enough definition in this order to ensure what the intent is.”

He said he couldn’t issue a declaration that conflicts with the judge’s order. The mayor’s legal team is working through the order to determine what is required vs. what is only a recommendation or a desire.

“Is what ... [Hill] said today — ‘all business is essential’ — is that an order?' I don’t know yet,” he said. “I can’t conflict with orders, but I can conflict with desires, intent, wishes, pleadings.”

He said he understood the wish to maintain a healthy local economy.

“But money — and I know it’s easy to say if you have some in the bank — money, you can fix that problem,” Fuller said. “Ultimately, you can’t fix death.”

Hill said Tuesday evening that he’d drawn his order as narrowly as possible so cities can complement it with their own guidelimes.

The way he defined essential business was “the easiest to understand of them all,” he said.

“Every business is absolutely essential to somebody, and every job is essential to somebody because they count on it for their livelihood," Hill said. "That does not mean that every business is going to be able to stay open. It does not mean that every job will continue to exist while we’re in this unique circumstance.”

Businesses that can comply with the need for social distancing and abiding by other orders can remain open. Those that can't comply, will have to close, he said.

Hill said a defined list of what businesses are essential could create problems.

“It’s almost a free pass to say, ‘Well, I’m on the good list; I don’t have to worry about complying.’ ”

Darrell Hale, the Collin County commissioner for Precinct 3, praised the order in a Facebook post Tuesday, saying the judge’s order “strikes a great balance,” instructing people to stay home unless they’re going to work or to an essential business.

“Basically what most people have been doing already,” he said.

Plano Mayor Harry LaRosiliere said that though he understands the intent of the Collin County order, the difference between nonessential and essential operations could have been defined more clearly.

But he said the measure emphasized the most important message: Stay home as much as possible.

“Common sense and pragmatism has to factor in regardless of the message you’re getting from your public officials,” he said. “For us as a community, in order for us to come through this on the other side, we have to exercise a sense of personal responsibility.”

He said tighter restrictions are likely to be implemented when the Commissioners Court evaluates the order.

“I don’t see what happens a week from now that would not require we become more strict on our measures,” LaRosiliere said.

He also said he’d wait until next week before he would consider imposing more regulations in Plano to avoid more confusion.

In Frisco, the order is especially confusing because the city is split between Denton and Collin counties, Mayor Jeff Cheney said.

The city is going to follow Denton County’s stay-at-home order, also issued Tuesday, which is closer to Dallas County’s than Collin County’s. Businesses that must close under Denton County’s order will have to comply even if they’re on the Collin County side of the line.

“We want consistency in our city,” he said. “Our application of both of these orders is that our residents should not see a difference regardless of the county they’re in.”

Cheney said that though mayors in Collin County agreed people needed to stay home, the leaders of some of the smaller cities thought their communities’ business needs were different than their larger neighbors’.

Hill’s "approach kind of landed on not necessarily going all the way, as some of the mayors wanted him to,” Cheney said. “He took us 75% of the way there, and the rest is on each city.”

Because Celina also is divided between Collin and Denton counties, Mayor Sean Terry said he was taking time to determine how businesses would be affected by requirements Denton County issued Tuesday that are stricter than its neighbor.

But he said the city, which has no confirmed cases of the virus, doesn’t have many businesses that would be heavily affected.

“The restaurants are already closed,” he said. “It’s really going to affect the barbershops and salons.”

Before Collin County issued its order, the city of Richardson issued its own shelter-in-place order Monday, one that falls more in line with Dallas County’s.

The order explains that essential businesses include health-care facilities, grocery stores, banks, media services, hardware stores, laundromats and delivery services.

Richardson’s order also prohibits in-person religious or worship services, puts a limit on toilet paper purchases and prohibits elective medical procedures.

Because Richardson is split between Dallas and Collin counties, a store on the Dallas side would have to close while a similar store in Collin could remain open, according to the two orders.

Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

In Dallas County, “essential business” covered health-care workers, as well as government jobs that provide for the health, safety and welfare of the public, such as first responders. People who work in construction, public transportation and utilities are also considered essential, as well as food service providers, such as grocery stores and restaurants that prepare food for delivery or carry-out.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called upon county judges and mayors Tuesday to take a regional approach to fighting the coronavirus.

“To avoid issuing new and revised emergency regulations on a daily basis, local county judges should work with their stakeholders, such as the business owners and the cities within their jurisdictions who will bear the brunt of enforcing these constantly evolving regulations,” Johnson said in a written statement. “Beating COVID-19 will take swift and aggressive action, but everyone all must do their parts.”

Collin County, like the rest of the state, is still under orders from Gov. Greg Abbott that requires restaurants to close their dining rooms. Bars, gyms, and massage parlors are also closed. Restaurants can still deliver food and provide takeout.

Tuesday, nearly every Democrat in the Texas House called on the governor to issue a statewide stay-at-home order.

A letter circulated by the House Democratic Caucus cited advice from medical experts that “limitations on all non-essential movement give our state the best chance to flatten the curve and avoid overwhelming our health-care system within a matter of weeks.”

Robert Haley, an epidemiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center speaking on behalf of the Dallas County Medical Society, has said counties with fewer restrictions than Dallas County has imposed are likely to see a larger growth in COVID-19 cases.

If their citizens travel to Dallas County, they may bring new infections.

“If that happens,” he said, “no one wins.”

Read the full text of Collin County’s order here:

Tarrant County

Collin County’s stay-at-home order was one in a flurry of similar directives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Tuesday.

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and other mayors in the county gathered to announce a unified front in the fight against the coronavirus by issuing a shelter-in-place order.

It, like Dallas County’s, encourages everyone to stay at home except to perform essential functions and prohibits public gatherings of any size.

Residents are allowed to exercise outside as long as they observe social-distancing rules, county officials said.

The Tarrant County mayors dubbed the order “Y’all Stay Home” in an effort to put a kinder tone on a serious order.

Mayor Price put the "Stay at Home-Work Safe" Declaration into effect from 3/24 (midnight) to April 3rd. We'll have all the details about this declaration on our website: https://t.co/CTul2hqcDb. Below is a summary of the essential/non-essential businesses for reference. #FTWPrep pic.twitter.com/LoO81WX2jH — Fort Worth Office of Emergency Management (@FWOEM) March 24, 2020

“This is not meant to be alarmist or to cause panic,” Price said. “Don’t go panic-shopping. There’s plenty of goods, plenty of food.”

The shelter-in-place order will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday and remain in place until at least April 3, officials said.

Whitley said the order was a straightforward attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“If you’re working, go to work. When you get finished, go home,” he said. “We’re not looking to social gatherings. We want you to go home.”

Price said COVID-19 could overwhelm health-care facilities in her city and the county.

“We have 5,300 hospital beds in Tarrant County and, at any given time, about 85 percent of them are full,” she said. “We could easily have 12,000 who need hospital care if we don’t slow the spread of this virus.”

Price peppered her remarks with notes of empathy.

“It isn’t lost on us that these are incredibly hard times,” she said. “But if you’re sick and we can’t treat you in our hospitals, we will really be in trouble.”

Whitley said the order will be reinforced by official declarations from other cities, adding, “We’re going to have to watch out” for people who violate the order.

“If we see a pickup basketball game, we’re going to stop it,” he said.

Price said tickets won’t be issued for first offenses but may follow for subsequent violations.

Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said the order was not an official “shutdown.”

“We are not shutting down. That is not the case. It means exactly what is says: Work safe," he said. “You are there in your home, not being exposed. We need you to work, we need you to be productive. It will help us when we come out of this to have a stronger economy.”

If employers in the county try to force employees to come in for work that is not deemed essential, Whitley said, “I imagine we’re going to have to have some discussions with employers.”

Price’s remarks and those of other officials were buttressed by several medical professionals who were on hand at Tuesday morning’s news conference at City Hall. They said that so far their resources for treating coronavirus were stable, and they expressed confidence in the supply chain to keep equipment in stock.

Price and Williams said outreach efforts for people who need help will include everyone, whether they are legal residents or not.

“We can save lives, we can save jobs,” Price said. “Everyone’s life matters, no matter how old, no matter how young.”

Denton County

The stay-at-home order announced Tuesday by Denton County Judge Andy Eads and Denton Mayor Chris Watts will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

It will last seven days unless the county’s Commissioners Court extends it or the judge revises it.

Under the order, essential businesses such as health-care operations and government agencies, are allowed to remain open. People who are working at such businesses are permitted to travel to work.

“Flattening the curve is going to depend on doing what is right,” Watts said. “If we do not do that, it’s not only going to prolong this environment, it will prolong the deaths of those in our community.”

Jody Gonzalez, director of Denton County Emergency Services said people who violate the order could face a $1,000 fine or 180 days in jail.

The order follows restrictions that Denton County health officials issued Sunday to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The restrictions closed bars, commercial amusement establishments, gyms and businesses that do not sell essential household items.

Read the full text of Denton County’s order here:

Rockwall County

Rockwall County Judge David Sweet announced a stay-at-home order Tuesday, with an extension of a local disaster declaration that was issued earlier this month.

With the exception of essential businesses, Rockwall County residents are to remain in their homes beginning at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. The order will last until 11:59 p.m. April 15.

Residents may leave their homes only for essential work and activities. People who do go to work are required to maintain six-foot social distancing.

Similar to other counties’ orders, Rockwall County prohibits public and private gatherings of 10 or more people and all elective medical, surgical and dental procedures. Restaurants can provide only delivery, take-out or drive-through service.

Essential businesses include jobs in health care, government, infrastructure, grocery stores and child-care services or that provide provide food, shelter or social services.

Read the full text of Rockwall County’s order here:

Ellis County

By a vote of 3-2, Ellis County commissioners approved a “stay home, stay safe” order for county residents in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“We need to flatten the curve,” said Dr. Leigh Nordstrom of the county’s health authority, in recommendation of the shelter-in-place order.

Eight cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the county, with an additional 20 people being monitored as of Tuesday evening.

The order goes into effect at midnight Wednesday and will continue through April 3.

Read the full text of Ellis County’s order here.

Kaufman County

Kaufman County Judge Hal Richards ordered a shelter-in-place for residents during an emergency Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday morning, along with a 30-day extension of an emergency declaration.

The shelter-in-place order will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday and will last until 11:59 p.m. April 8.

Echoing nearby counties’ instructions, the order states Kaufman County residents must stay inside their homes and only leave for essential activities, such as exercising or obtaining medical supplies, or for work that is deemed essential.

Those who work at an essential business or perform essential activities must maintain social-distancing boundaries of six feet or more. According to the order, essential jobs include health care, public safety, utilities, manufacturing and construction.

The order also prohibits public or private gatherings of any size outside of a home.

Restaurants in the county can provide only take-out, delivery or drive-through service. Worship services must be live-streamed, and elective medical procedures are prohibited during the duration of the order.

The county, which has not had a confirmed case of the virus, includes the cities of Kaufman, Forney and Terrell.

“To wait until we have a confirmed positive in the county before taking action would be reckless,” Kaufman County Health Officer Dr. Ben Brashear said during the meeting.

Staff writers Sue Ambrose, James Barragán and Marc Ramirez contributed to this report.

Read the full text of Kaufman County’s order here: