MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — By 8 p.m. on Monday in Monroe County, people were inside their homes, gearing up to hunker down for the next two weeks at least.
With dozens of positive cases of the coronavirus reported here, Monroe County was among six counties that Governor Wolf is ordering residents to stay at home to stop the spread of the infection.
Eric Donator is not looking forward to being holed up in his home in Tobyhanna.
"Now that we have to stay home, people are telling us to do that, it's different," said Donator. "I don't want to be staying home, I want to go outside and have fun with my friends, but I can't because the government told us we can't."
Laura Lucas pulled into her house with a half-hour left before the 8 p.m. curfew.
"If people stay in, then hopefully it will be brief and then go away, and then we can go back to our normal lives," said Lucas.
At this point, the governor says the stay-at-home order will last until April 6, also pushing the statewide school closures to that date as well.
Parents and students in the Pocono Mountain School district lined up outside West High School to get laptops for their children.
Many were not happy how it was being handled.
"I'm frustrated with this line, how they expect us to distance ourselves, and you know all these precautions, but yet here we all are breathing on each other," said parent Heather Keller.
The governor did include guidelines for the people included in the stay at home order of when they can leave their homes.
That includes getting medicine and getting supplies necessary for themselves and their families.
They are still allowed outside to get exercise, and if you work at essential or life-sustaining businesses.
Many said they'll take this day by day.
Pocono Mountain School District issued the following statement regarding the laptop distribution:
"Today, Pocono Mountain School District was able to provide 3,368 Chromebooks to students from all nine of our schools between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Without the Chromebooks, these students would not be able to access online educational resources. We had planned to issue computers to District students, who do not have computers at home to use for educational purposes, on a scheduled basis later in the week, but with Governor Wolf's new stay-at-home directive starting at 8 p.m., we did not think we could wait. Our quickly organized drive up, curb-side computer service worked very well at all of our schools today, except the West High School, where parents were lined up outside of the school. This should have been corrected to ensure proper social distancing or curbside pick up. Most of the students who attend Pocono Mountain schools are economically disadvantaged and need this extra support to stay engaged in learning during these extended school closures."