Over 50 elected officials have now signed onto an open letter from State Rep. Mike Connolly calling on Governor Baker to issue a "Stay At Home" or "Shelter In Place," order to limit the spread of coronavirus and keep our hospitals from being over-burdened, according a story by WBUR. 

"Right now, it seems most residents of the Commonwealth are indeed practicing social distancing and staying home — often at great personal sacrifice and hardship." writes Rep. Mike Connolly. "However, we need the Governor to take more aggressive action for three reasons:

• First, not all residents of the Commonwealth are taking the coronavirus threat seriously and many people continue to have unnecessary in-person interactions.
• Second, there are many people who would like to stay home but are being compelled to show up to non-essential jobs.
• Third, while municipalities such as Cambridge, Somerville, Provincetown, and Nantucket have all issued local restrictions that go further than the current statewide restrictions, the experts tell us efforts to limit the spread of the virus work best when they are uniform across jurisdictions."

Over 40,000 of you have now signed onto this petition - today, we are asking you to help in two ways: if you use Twitter or Facebook, help us spread the word by posting with the hashtag #StayAtHome (or #ShelterInPlace if you prefer), calling on Governor Baker to issue the order, and linking to our petition or this article. In addition, you can contact your local elected officials and ask them to sign onto Rep. Mike Connolly's open letter, if they have not already.

Thank you to everyone who has been working so hard to take care of yourselves, your friends and family, and everyone in our community - we will get through this together. For a list of current regulations and public health updates, visit the Massachusetts dedicated coronavirus website. For an overview of the legislative work being done at the State and Federal level to address this crisis and respond to its devastating effects on Massachusetts residents and businesses, MA Senate President Karen Spilka has created this useful resource.