Last week, a bunch of local leaders in central Florida got on a conference call.

Okay, we're going to start calling the meeting to order.

This is a meeting of the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group.

They were considering a countywide stay-at-home order to fight the coronavirus. And if you want to

understand why these decisions have been so hard, it helps to listen in here, see what these county

commissioners and mayors are all talking about, who they're listening to. On this call, the dean of

the local medical school was one of the first people to speak up.

She said, telling people to stay at home, it was a good idea.

The CEO of a local health system weighed in, said, look, this is your call, but we've got your back.

Anything that we can do to blunt the surge is a good thing to do.

And if the county or city decides social distancing is what they want,

excuse me, a stay-at-home order is what they want to do.

We can get behind that order.

Then the politicians started to pipe up.

Thank you, Commissioner.

And I just want to emphasize that the county attorney's office has not drafted any orders

whatsoever.

We were directed.

They seemed caught off guard, cautious.

This is the mayor of Plant City, Florida.

You know, we have to stick with what you said earlier, Mr. Chairman, is that we have to be one voice.

And when we're not longer one voice, we are definitely going to have chaos in our community.

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