MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — Thursday, the governor of Tennessee issued a stay at home order to help combat the coronavirus, which means Alabama is now surrounded by states with stay at home orders. A local man started a petition to get Governor Kay Ivey to do the same.

His name is Samuel Shelton, and he’s not the only one wondering why Governor Ivey hasn’t put a stay at home order in place in Alabama. In an email to News 5’s Cherish Lombard, he says he is “just a concerned citizen who feels that it’s his civic duty to read the writing on the wall if no one else will.”

“I think there’s a voice that’s not being heard in this,” said Shelton.

Shelton says he feels a stay at home order should really be considered in Alabama, and that’s why he started a petition on change.org– to give “that voice” to others. He’s hoping to get 10,000 signatures from those who feel the same way he does, then present the petition to the governor.

“I don’t think that we can really make a mistake by being extreme in our reaction to something that we don’t know what it can do. People have compared it to the flu but we have years and years of data pon what the flu can do. And we’ve only got data on this for about three months in the United States,” Shelton told WKRG News 5.

Thursday, Governor Ivey did issue a proclamation to “improve upon” the state’s efforts to combat COVID-19, but Shelton doesn’t think that’s enough, and says he’s afraid in this case, hindsight really will be 20/20.

He said, “We are living on borrowed time I guess I would say in this in that it would be better to act than to react. I think with this time it’s a critical state.”

A statement from the governor’s office released Thursday says, “Many factors surround a statewide shelter-in-place, and Alabama is not at a place where we are ready to make this call.”

If you would like to sign the petition for a stay at home order in Alabama, click here.

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