JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Starting next Monday, May 18, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry's "work from home" executive order will be lifted.
"It will be two months [Wednesday] since I've declared a state of emergency for Duval County... it's been a difficult two months," he said. "... [I am] removing the mandate, but hope employers will continue remote access."
This order is part of a number of executive orders that Curry enforced over the past eight weeks due to COVID-19. He said come Monday, all of these executive orders will be lifted, but to remember Florida is still under a statewide order issued by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Due to DeSantis' order, bars and nightclubs remain closed while hair salons, nail salons and barbershops were allowed to reopen with partial capacity on Monday.
Last Monday, Curry rolled out phase one of reopening the city, allowing restaurants and retailers to open with 25 percent capacity and following CDC guidelines.
Curry said he wants phase two to happen next week, but is in talks with the governor's office to determine whether or not that will happen.
"We've had a month of downward trends in percent of positives, I think we are ready to go to Phase Two next week, but we will obviously do that in collaboration with [DeSantis'] numbers," he said.
During phase two, Curry said restaurants and retailers will be allowed more occupancy, as well as a "whole host of other things we haven't been able to do in the last eight weeks." Curry did not give specific examples, but said phase two will follow guidelines suggested by DeSantis and the White House.
"Don't expect, in short term, to see arenas packed," Curry added.
Curry said six additional COVID-19 testing sites were on the way, but more details about these sites will follow.
As of Tuesday morning, Duval County has 1,186 positive COVID-19 cases, 190 hospitalizations and 29 deaths. He said the percentage of positive cases remain to be less than 5 percent, lower than the state's 7 percent average.