Lincoln – Gov. Pete Ricketts on Thursday defended his refusal to issue a stay-at-home order for residents, arguing that it isn’t necessary for Nebraska even though most other governors have done so to try to keep the new coronavirus from spreading.

Ricketts said he doesn’t plan to deviate from his current approach, which includes a statewide, non-enforceable recommendation that residents avoid gatherings with more than 10 people.

The governor has taken a regional approach as well, ordering bans on 10-person gatherings and forcing restaurants to close their dining rooms in areas where confirmed cases of the virus can’t be traced.

Those bans are now in place in the majority of Nebraska’s 93 counties, accounting for well over two-thirds of the state’s population and virtually all of its population centers. Similar restrictions had commonly been in place in states that have issued stay-at-home orders.

Last Thursday, Ricketts pushed back against arguments that Nebraska should join 40 other states with official shelter-in-place orders, saying it doesn’t make sense to compare states with different needs and populations.

“These things aren’t all apples to apples,” he said.

Ricketts said some of Nebraska’s rules are stricter than other states that have full shelter-in-place orders. He pointed to Florida’s statewide order, which exempts religious services. Nebraska’s 10-person limit doesn’t include any such exemption.

Ricketts, a former executive at TD Ameritrade, said forcing businesses to shutter when they can still safely operate won’t necessarily keep the virus from spreading, particularly if companies are able to keep their workers separated.

He said that he expects confirmed cases to increase over the next several weeks as more people are tested, but he doesn’t anticipate the same sharp jumps as other states.

He also argued that Nebraska has had more time to prepare because the virus was likely spreading in hard-hit states like Washington and New York long before officials realized it. Nebraska officials approved their plan in early March, before officials found the first case of the virus that couldn’t be traced to an outside source.

Ricketts said the plan was developed with experts at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, one of three national biocontainment units that have cared for American citizens infected with Ebola and one of the national locations where cruise ship passengers were treated for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Our plan is right for Nebraska,” he said.

Iowa was also among the states that is holding off from issuing a statewide stay-at-home order.

 Pressure from medical experts and politicians mounted Thursday on Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who argued that data shows the move isn’t needed in Iowa even though she has imposed other restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

One of the most outspoken critics of Iowa’s approach to fighting the outbreak has been Eli Percenevich, an epidemiologist and physician who oversees a group of researchers studying infection prevention at the University of Iowa and Iowa City’s VA Hospital. He has called for a shelter-in-place order, saying many Iowans aren’t staying home.

Percenevich said the metrics used by the Iowa Department of Public Health to recommend stricter or relaxed social distancing interventions are inadequate. The agency released a document showing that its guidance has been based on the percentage of cases requiring hospitalization, the rate of cases over the last 14 days and number of outbreaks in long-term care centers.

“By the time you are waiting for specific disease metrics that are not targeting exponential spread, you are many weeks behind the virus,” Percenevich said. “You are intervening too late.”

Reynolds addressed the criticism Thursday by saying her orders have been done incrementally based on what the data was telling her. She said Iowa’s actions have not been much different than those of states that have shelter-in-place orders.

“I would ask them to go and take a look at other states and recommendations that they’ve put in their stay at home – I don’t care what you call it – I’m basing it on data,” she said to her critics.