CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A stay at home proclamation has been issued for Mecklenburg County starting Thursday at 8 a.m. because of the growing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
"In a matter of 10 days the total number of cases has increased significantly," said Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio. "Based on predictive modeling, if the current state continues, we could see the number of cases double every four days in the state of North Carolina."
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has been tasked with managing the stay at home order and said they will enforce the order in a respectful manner.
"We're going to manage it through voluntary compliance, dialogue, and cooperation from community members," said CMPD Deputy Chief Jeff Estes.
CMPD said they will manage this new order much like they managed the mass gathering order.
Police said they are looking for community cooperation however, the department does have the authority to issue citations or make misdemeanor arrests if all other efforts of voluntary cooperation fail.
Drivers should know that CMPD officers will not be proactively stopping motorists or people to ask where they are going.
"Our enforcement efforts will be complaint-driven," Estes said.
Police said the community can make complaints against people violating the stay at home order by visiting CMPD.org or by calling 311.
"Now this is a serious threat, potential lives hang in the balance as we seek to limit the spread of this virus," Estes said.
CMPD said the city of Mecklenburg has been nothing but cooperative and said they fully anticipate that cooperation to continue.
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