Newark Mayor Ras Baraka wants to bring attention to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic by asking all Newark residents to stay home and all businesses to close on Mondays for the next few weeks.

“We want to shut down the whole city,” Baraka said during his Thursday night Facebook Live briefing. “We’re sending out letters to all businesses asking them to close."

Baraka has already put restrictions on the city, closing most nonessential businesses and banning social gatherings. The city also has a curfew at night.

Baraka says that this new initiative is not an executive order, but a request.

“We are saying if you’re not a cop or a fireman or a nurse, or other front line medical workers, stay home,” Baraka said.

The mayor says that he hopes that the request to stay home discourages all businesses that are not involved in health, safety and emergency services to close. This includes food stores, pharmacies and manufacturing companies.

“The idea is to show community-wide solidarity in the face of the aggressive COVID-19 virus that is especially ravaging black and brown communities nationwide,” Baraka said.

Newark has seen 2,341 cases of the virus and 106 deaths as of Friday.

“If we continue business as usual, those numbers will continue to grow. So we are asking everybody, stay home, stay inside, stay alive,” Baraka said.

The mayor has dubbed the effort “Be Still Mondays.” He says that the effort will go through May 11.