Seven million people living across Northern California, including Silicon Valley are being ordered to shelter in place in an effort to stop the coronavirus from spreading. Sam Liccardo, Mayor of San Jose, California joins Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round to break down the latest.

Video Transcript

DAN ROBERTS: Well, nearly seven million people living across northern California, including in Silicon Valley, are now being ordered to shelter in place, in an effort to stop the coronavirus from spreading there. San Jose is one of the seven counties involved in this latest lockdown. And joining us now is the mayor of San Jose, California, Sam Liccardo.

So Mayor Liccardo, thank you for joining the program, first of all. Let me just ask, can you explain for the average lay person here who doesn't understand, what does shelter in place mean? Because the latest here in New York is that that is something Mayor Bill de Blasio is also considering for New York.

SAM LICCARDO: Yeah, that's a good question, since the order was offered by six counties here, issued. We've all been scrambling to make sure we understand what exactly it means. The bottom line is, folks are supposed to remain within their homes, unless they work within what is considered an essential activity or an essential industry.

Those are typically industries that involve the provision of health care or food, so grocery stores, restaurants, as long as they're not actually serving people on the premises and just serving food to go, things like that. Those kinds of employees can continue to be engaged at work. Everyone else has to stay home.

DAN ROBERTS: And Sam, a very quick follow-up there, because a couple of friends have asked me this about shelter in place, does that apply, as you understand it, to driving? What if people just in their car want to drive from one house to another house?

SAM LICCARDO: Only essential travel. That means if you're working in an essential activity or essential industry, then you can get to work. You can drive to go get food or medical care. But otherwise, you shouldn't be driving. And same goes for public transit. Certainly, people can go outside as long as they're walking around, and there is sufficient distance between them and other people who aren't in their household.

So it's pretty-- you know, it's a pretty novel situation for all of us. I think a lot of families are struggling with this right now. And of course, we're taking a pretty sensible approach about enforcement. We want to make sure everybody understands first and ensure that everybody knows how to comply before there's any real significant enforcement.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Right, Mayor Liccardo, that actually was my follow-up question. How is this enforced now, and how could enforcement change going forward, depending on how compliance is to the new policies?

SAM LICCARDO: Yeah, the reality is, you know, we're not sending police out there to arrest people on sidewalks. The police have higher priorities right now. You know, unless there's something really egregious like a St. Patrick's Day party with 1,000 people, to which I wasn't invited, you know, we might be sending the cops in to break up that.

But for the most part, this is about compliance and making sure people understand. And for the most part, people get it. They understand the public health and public safety importance of all of this, and they're complying.

SEANA SMITH: Mayor Liccardo, obviously, everyone's health and well-being is the number one focus right now. But what about the economic impact that San Jose, the city of San Jose, could possible face? I mean, we were just talking to our colleague, Jen Rogers, in the last block. And she was talking about the impact that it's already having on small businesses up in the Catskills. What are you seeing in your area?

SAM LICCARDO: Oh, it's severe. And it's not possibly. It's happening. And it started happening a few weeks ago. For that reason, we were the first city in the country to mandate a moratorium on evictions of tenants because we don't want to exacerbate our homelessness crisis by pushing thousands of families out in the street. We're considering a similar moratorium for small businesses today.

So there's very severe impacts. We know most businesses have already lost 50%, 60% of their revenue just in the last several weeks. And we know entire industries, hotels, pension center-related activity, anything related to the airports [INAUDIBLE] businesses have lost 90% of their revenue or more.

DAN ROBERTS: Mayor Liccardo, let's wrap this way, if we can just zoom out a little bit. For most people, or I guess, everyone, we've never experienced a time like this in our life in America. I mean, we're talking about shelter in place rules. What is it like right now to be a mayor of a city amid the coronavirus response and reaction? Everything has changed so quickly in the last week across the business world, sports, and what cities are doing. How does it feel, and what is your reaction right now?

SAM LICCARDO: Well, it is a very difficult time for all of us certainly. And as a local leader, your first inclination is really to find a way to fix it. But the reality is there's no simple fix. And so a lot of my effort right now is focusing on how we can communicate to folks that this is our moment.

Many generations throughout history are tested with their moment. We talk about the greatest generation with World War II, and this is our moment. And amid all of our common fears, we have this moment to find uncommon courage. And we're starting to see that as people are reaching out to help deliver food to seniors.

And we're about to launch a big initiative tomorrow to figure out how people who want to help can help participate in offering a caring hand in various ways. So we're going to find the character of our community through this crisis. And hopefully, we'll be able to do it in a way that's a model for the rest of the country.

DAN ROBERTS: All right, it's a great answer. I hope everyone was paying attention. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, thanks for joining Yahoo Finance.

SAM LICCARDO: Thank you. Good to be with you.