CHICAGO — With many Chicagoans not practicing proper social distancing as COVID-19 continues to spread, Mayor Lori Lightfoot laid down the law Thursday.

“Your conduct, yours, is posing a direct threat to our public health,” Lightfoot said of people still crowding outside despite the pandemic. “And without question, your failure to abide by these life-saving orders will erase any progress we have made over the past week in slowing the spread of this disease and could lead to more deaths.”

The mayor shut down the lakefront, the Riverwalk and The 606, used her daily press briefing to deliver a stern public warning to take the stay at home order seriously and then sent out an emergency alert text to phones across the city.