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Gov. Charlie Baker addresses reporters at a March 16 press conference. State House News Service Photo
Gov. Charlie Baker has announced all “non-essential” businesses in Massachusetts, including real estate agents, must close their physical offices as the state continues to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.
The order takes effect Tuesday at noon and ends April 7 at noon. Companies in industries not deemed “essential services” by the order must go to all-remote work. The order does not mean that restaurants must stop offering take-away service, Baker said.
Baker made the announcement in a Monday morning press conference, which was paired with new guidance from the state Department of Public Health that urges all residents to stay at home unless doing essential errands or “taking a walk around the block” or visiting a park. Baker’s Monday order also updates the limit on the size of public gatherings to 10 people.
“I know we have the intelligence and capabilities to make this work so we can come through this stronger,” Baker said.
The new order was motivated by the continued spread of coronavirus in all of the state’s counties.
“Acting now to prevent more person-to-person interaction can slow the spread of the virus,” Baker said. “A concerted effort now can get us back to work and back to school soon.”
Companies in the following industries are counted as “essential services” under the order:
- Health Care and Public Health
- Law Enforcement, Public Safety and First Responders
- Food and Agriculture
- Critical Manufacturing
- Transportation
- Energy
- Water and Wastewater
- Public Works
- Communications and Information Technology
- Financial Services
- Defense Industry Base
- Chemical Manufacturing & Hazardous Materials
- News Media
The order explicitly exempts private construction projects from having to close, but appears to require the cessation of open houses and private home tours, including live-streamed “virtual” home tours.
“Essential” workers in the financial services industry are enumerated as:
- Workers who are needed to process and maintain systems for processing financial transactions
and services like payment, clearing, and settlement; wholesale funding; services; and capital
markets activities. - Workers who are needed to provide consumer access to banking and lending services, including
ATMs, and to move currency and payments. - Workers who support financial operations, such as those staffing data and security operations
centers.
Baker has faced increasing calls from lawmakers and municipal officials to issue a “shelter in place” order. The list of state lawmakers and municipal officials calling for Gov. Charlie Baker to issue a shelter-in place order now numbers 55, according to Rep. Mike Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat who has been leading a push for the order.
Baker had spent much of last week saying he would not issue such an order, and in his Monday press conference repeated his opposition to such an order, calling it “not realistic.”
On Friday, the day the state reported its first death from the new coronavirus, Baker said his decision not to impose a stay-at-home order was based on guidance of public health and medical officials.
“We have shut down enormous parts of our economy and our communities across the commonwealth, and I’m sure all of you have seen many of the same videos and had the same kind of conversations I have with people who expressed the fact that their once-thriving downtown is now a ghost town,” Baker said. “We are very much in social distancing and shutdown mode here in Massachusetts based on what we’ve already done.”
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
