Laredo City Council approves mandatory coronavirus lockdown

City Council late Tuesday unanimously approved a two-week mandatory lockdown in Laredo, where members of the community will have to quarantine at home, leaving only to go to work or buy necessities such as groceries, medicine, take-out food from restaurants or home improvement materials. Council is also mandating that employers provide health safety measures for their employees such as hand sanitizer. less City Council late Tuesday unanimously approved a two-week mandatory lockdown in Laredo, where members of the community will have to quarantine at home, leaving only to go to work or buy necessities such as ... more Photo: Handout, National Institutes Of Health/AFP Via Getty Images Photo: Handout, National Institutes Of Health/AFP Via Getty Images Image 1 of / 252 Caption Close Laredo City Council approves mandatory coronavirus lockdown 1 / 252 Back to Gallery

City Council late Tuesday unanimously approved a two-week mandatory lockdown in Laredo, where members of the community will have to quarantine at home, leaving only to go to work or buy necessities such as groceries, medicine, take-out food from restaurants or home improvement materials. Council is also mandating that employers provide health safety measures for their employees such as hand sanitizer.

READ MORE: City of Laredo issues further information on mandatory coronavirus lockdown

Outside of these exceptions, gatherings of more than 10 people during this time will be prohibited, council decided.

They furthermore voted to not disconnect any citizens’ utilities during this period, and to prohibit landlords from evicting tenants, residential or commercial.

This took place at an emergency City Council meeting livestreamed on Facebook Tuesday night. Council members, the mayor and a few members of city staff were split up between three rooms at City Hall and teleconferenced to communicate between rooms.

The discussion was lengthy and contentious. Health Department Director Dr. Hector Gonzalez did not support a mandatory lockdown, which took a step beyond the order Mayor Pete Saenz signed earlier in the day that prohibited most gatherings of 50 or more people.

This marks the most serious action yet taken by the City of Laredo as it copes with its first positive case of COVID-19.

Councilman Marte Martinez, a medical doctor, expressed major concern that this was a locally-transmitted case, that Laredo’s “patient zero” was unknown.

“There’s no overreacting right now, there’s only underreacting. ... The fact that we don’t know when this patient became infected or who infected this patient and then how long they themselves were contagious puts us in a completely different algorithm where we’re no longer able to plan ahead. We have to react,” Martinez said.

He and council member George Altgelt were the most enthusiastic about this mandatory lockdown. Several council members expressed deep worry about how the people who live paycheck to paycheck would be able to live if they couldn’t go to work. The vote for the lockdown was approved unanimously only when it was clear that people would still be able to go to work.

Meanwhile comments poured in on the Facebook livestream imploring City Council to institute a citywide lockdown.

READ MORE: Laredo events canceled or postponed due to coronavirus

This order will go into effect 12:01 a.m. Thursday, council clarified.