Tennessee doctors, mayors urge a shelter-in-place order to fight coronavirus

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pandemic. Reported illnesses range from very mild to severe, including death. Agencies anticipate widespread transmission will occur in the U.S. in coming months and recommend social distancing among other measures to slow the spread. Call your doctor and stay home if you are sick. Get more information at CDC.gov/coronavirus or contact the Tennessee Department of Health coronavirus information line at 877-857-2945 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. CT daily.

Several Tennessee mayors and 10 doctors representing medical professionals across the state have urged Gov. Bill Lee to issue an order requiring residents to stay home for two weeks in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.

In two letters sent Friday and Saturday, both groups urge the governor to issue a "stay at home" or "shelter in place" order similar to governors in California and Illinois. The letter from the doctors urges the order to start as soon as Sunday at midnight.

So far, Lee has taken no such action. On Sunday, the governor issued an executive order closing gyms and limiting restaurants and bars to takeout and drive-thru services, but the order specifically stated it was not requiring residents to shelter in place.

Nashville leaders went further. Mayor John Cooper and city health officials issued a "safer at home" order on Sunday morning, embracing most of the recommendations that doctors had sent to the governor.

The mayoral letter was sent by Franklin Mayor Ken Moore, chairman of the Middle Tennessee Mayors Caucus, who said he was writing "on behalf of several mayors and county executives across Middle Tennessee." The letter from doctors was signed by representatives of the Tennessee Medical Association, the Tennessee Chapter of the American College of Physicians and Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Infectious Disease Division, plus others. Moore said these groups represent more than 6,000 medical professionals across the state.

"It is our estimation that we have little time to 'flatten the curve' on the current situation," the doctors' letter states. "China and South Korea have made great progress by imposing restrictive measures. We ask that Tennessee do the same."

The Tennessee Medical Association is collecting signatures on an online petition urging the shelter-in-place order. As of Sunday afternoon, the petition had more than 8,600 signatures.

Nashville Councilwoman Emily Benedict has also called on the governor to order residents to stay home in guest column in The Tennessean. Without such an order, residents would take only "basic actions" of washing their hands and avoiding touching their face, Benedict wrote.

"Those are very important preventative actions and should not be stopped," she wrote. "However, we have seen from the exponential growth that we cannot flatten the curve without even more protective requirements."

Reporter Kerri Bartlett contributed to this report.

Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at brett.kelman@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.