Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee finally gave critics the words they wanted to hear Thursday, requiring Volunteer State residents to stay home during the coronavirus outbreak unless they are engaged in “essential activities.”
Whether it will alter behavior any more than his previous directives did remains to be seen.
Lee had been relentlessly criticized for not requiring Tennesseans to stay at home by Democrats, physicians and others despite his previous pleas that residents do exactly that.
On Thursday, though, he said cellphone mobility activity indicated residents, after initially adhering to restrictions that closed businesses and urged people to stay at home, had picked up again beginning March 30, showing residents were on the move.
“The reason I strengthened [the order],” Lee told this page Friday, “is not because of opinions or guesses or petitions” but of what the data showed. “I’m an engineer by training. I’d rather put together all the facts and solve the problem with the facts you have. I prefer that to making a decision by your gut, but sometimes you have to do that too.”