Orange County, FL Officials Announce "Stay At Home" Mandate For Area With WWE PC And Full Sail
WWE will wrap their loaded week of TV tapings from the Orlando, Florida area this week just as a new two-week "stay at home" mandate is going into effect in Orange County, which includes Orlando and Winter Park, Florida, where the WWE Performance Center and Full Sail University are located.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, and Sheriff John Mina announced today that the county will be under the "stay at home" order for two weeks, beginning this Thursday at 11pm ET.
WWE is set to wrap their tapings on Thursday with Night Two of WrestleMania 36. They taped WWE SmackDown and WWE 205 Live episodes last Friday, WWE NXT episodes on Sunday, and then WWE RAW on Monday and today. They are reportedly taping WrestleMania 36 Night One on Wednesday, and then the second night of The Grandest Stage of Them All on Thursday.
Mayor Demings confirmed that there are at least 50 cases of coronavirus in the county as of this afternoon.
"Orange County now has at least 50 cases within our county," said Demings. "On March 15, just one week ago we had just one case. It is an understatement that it is spreading throughout our community."
All of Orange County is being asked to stay at home as much as possible, except for essential business.
"We believe this is the most effective way to deal with the coronavirus threat," said Demings at the press conference. "Our goal is to get our lives back to normal as soon as possible."
Florida officials have called on Governor DeSantis to institute a similar lockdown statewide. There is concern across the country that travelers from New York will spread the COVID-19 virus to other states as they try to get away from New York during the outbreak, and DeSantis has pushed for restrictions on travelers from New York, noting their desire to escape a statewide lockdown in NY will likely bring hundreds of people with the virus to Florida. DeSantis said there are over 190 direct flights from the New York City area to the state of Florida, and he believes that every single flight has someone infected on it.
As noted earlier today at this link, at least two WWE Superstars are in quarantine over coronavirus concerns. Rey Mysterio and Dana Brooke were both pulled from the WrestleMania 36 card due to the concern. It was noted that Brooke is sick, and WWE didn't want to take any risk with either talent.
Stay tuned for updates from this week's WWE TV tapings as we go into WrestleMania 36 Week.
Steph Franchomme contributed to this article.