Mayor Paul TenHaken won't push for a stay-at-home order after new data shows Sioux Falls hospitals have the capacity to handle a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations.

"Based on today’s updated data, I feel that the measures we still must take to further flatten our curve can be enacted through enhanced regulations in our existing no lingering ordinance and not via a stay-at-home order," TenHaken told the City Council on Friday.

After withdrawing or formally rejecting the stay-at-home ordinance up for a final vote Tuesday night, TenHaken hopes councilors will bring ideas for enhanced social distancing practices and COVID-19 mitigation efforts that can be enacted without mandating people stay in their homes.

More:Mayor TenHaken's stay-at-home order faces skeptical City Council

The "no lingering" ordinance right now restricts businesses with heavy public traffic from letting more than 10 patrons on their premises at once. But TenHaken said the council could consider bolstering it to include requirements that companies conduct mandatory mask wearing, temperature checks for employees at large companies "or other potential measures," he said.

The about-face comes two days after more than a dozen business owners and liberty advocates voiced concerns that a stay-at-home order would violate constitutional rights, would be difficult to enforce and would bankrupt business barely holding on as it is.

Violation of TenHaken's stay-at-home proposal would have been a Class 2 misdemeanor.

But it wasn't the public criticism he took that prompted the change in position. Rather, new modeling being used by the city shows the Sioux Falls healthcare systems has capacity to adequately handle the peak of COVID-19 infections.

City data shows that with the existing social distancing requirements in place right now, an hospitalizations will peak on May 19 when an estimated 725 people in Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties will need medical care at the same time.

Officials with Sanford and Avera have said the two healthcare systems have a combined bed capacity of about 1,700.

A stay-at-home order, however, is projected to lower the peak rate to 325 hospitalized at once and push the date that happens back to May 30.

Dr. Jeremy Cauwels with Sanford Health told councilors that from the beginning of the pandemic, the goal of implementing social distancing measures was to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the city so not to overwhelm the healthcare systems. Social distancing, he said, does not lessen the number of people who get sick, just at the rate at which they are infected.

TenHaken said during a special informational meeting Friday that Avera and Sanford had a difference of opinion on whether a stay-at-home order is necessary, with Sanford not supporting the policy.

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Avera, on the other hand, took the position that "it certainly wouldn't hurt at this point," he said.

Earlier in the day, Public Health Director Jill Franken said that publicly available cell phone data shows residents in Minnehaha County decreased travel by 25% in the first weeks of the pandemic, but movement has been increasing recently.

"Folks are starting to not do as much of the social distancing as we would like," Franken said.

She then re-emphasized the importance of using social distancing, especially as the weather continues to get warmer and more people start going outside.

"This weekend is going to be so tempting for you all to go out there in the community," Franken said. "But we need you. You have to be abiding by all of the social distancing efforts we have put into place."

The health department team is also providing technical assistance to at least 40 businesses within city to help enforce social distancing practices, Franken said.

These efforts will help the community get through what will happen in the weeks to come, she said.

TenHaken said no matter happens, people need to realize that the spread of COVID-19 cannot be stopped, no matter what steps are put in place.

"Remember, we are not stopping COVID," he said. "The reality is people will die from COVID-19, people will need ventilators, people will need ICU beds, people will need to be isolated from family. That is a reality that we all must face right now."

TenHaken's letter about rescinding order