All you Need to Know About the Stay-at-Home Enforcement

On March 31, 2020 Governor Larry Hogan issued a stay-at-home order to all residents in the state of Maryland in hopes of isolating  and slowing the spread of COVID-19, also commonly referred to as Coronavirus. Having already ordered schools, universities, malls, gyms, etc closed in mid-March, and still seeing drastic increases in the numbers of cases, ordering people to stay in their homes was Hogan’s only remaining option. What this means is residents may only leave their homes homes for essential activities, if they are deemed an essential business worker, or they need medicine. 

Governor Hogan emphasized that the more successful we are social distancing and self quarantining the better our chance of slowing the spread of this disease and getting back on track to recovery. But what exactly does this mean for us? The following is a breakdown of the essential components of this order.

Essential Activities Include:

• Caring for yourself or your household or your family members
  • Grocery shopping
  • Seeking medical attention (when absolutely necessary)
  • Delivering essentials to elderly family members is also permitted
  • Picking up school supplies and/or meals from schools is also permitted
• Exercising outdoors
  • Congregating with people outside of your immediate family is not permitted
  • Social distancing rules apply, maintain a 6’ distance from others

Essential Workers:

• If you work in a store or business deemed essential and allowed to remain open under Hogan’s order, you may report to work as scheduled. 

Essential Activities do NOT include the following:

• Home improvement shopping
  • You may not go curtain shopping or start that long awaited home improvement project.
• Getting together with a friend
  • Physical distancing means simply that we must only be in contact with our immediate family
  • Gathering with even a small number of people outside your home increases the risk of exposure and of exposing others

If a person is caught breaking these rules there are significant penalties which include a $500.00 fine and up to a year in jail and these rules remain in effect ‘until further notice’ meaning that there is no end date at the moment for these restrictions. 

As Cases rise all over the country, now, more than ever, we all need to do our part to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe and healthy. If we do our part now, we can slowly bring the rate of infections down and we can slowly return to school and work and eventually to restaurants and movie theaters. But until then we are all in this together so let’s all do our part!

Citations

“The Office of GOVERNOR LARRY HOGAN.” Governor of Maryland, governor.maryland.gov/coronavirus/. 

Wood, Pamela. “Maryland Is Now under a ‘Stay-at-Home’ Order to Fight Coronavirus. But Not Much Has Actually Changed.” Baltimoresun.com, Baltimore Sun, 31 Mar. 2020, www.baltimoresun.com/coronavirus/bs-md-hogan-home-order-takeaways-20200330-svso6o5navaznmafxuf3tztmsa-story.html.