"It's not over yet": Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said Friday he has already seen some lax behavior in social distancing after the statewide stay-at-home order yielded Thursday to a safer-at-home order, which translated into more people eager to get out of the house spending time in public. He cautioned Madison County residents not to abandon best practices that led to a flattening of the curve in the Huntsville region.

"This pretty weekend, it's going to be hard for us to manage and keep people separated," Battle said. "We could see it last night as you drove through the streets, people were together. People see we have safer-at-home rather than stay-at-home order. I'm afraid we're not keeping an eye on making sure that we sanitize and separate and continue to do what has made us a success so far.

"We've got to continue what we've been doing. That's the most important thing that we could remember. Something got us to this stage where we've been one of the safest counties in the state. So we've got to continue what we've been doing over the last month to six weeks. It's not over yet."

Paul Gattis