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The Natchez Mayor and Board of Aldermen took a bold measure in issuing a Stay at Home resolution on Tuesday.

The order makes it clear that all but essential workers and people tending to life’s necessities should stay at home at all times during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With only two confirmed COVID-19 cases from Adams County, all of that might seem extreme. It is.

Unless you are going to get food or medication or work in law enforcement, some emergency first responder service or grocery service, you should not be out and about.

Most of all, however, people should not be attending group gatherings, whether it be at church, at parties, at nightclubs and bars or eating in dining rooms at restaurants.

However, consider this, COVID-19 testing is running way behind as Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell can attest since his own COVID-19 test took nine days to return from a private testing laboratory.

City COVID-19 task force members learned Monday that some 50 tests from Adams County have been sent to labs and are patients are awaiting results.

With testing running a week or more behind, the official numbers also are running a week behind.

That also means a lot of people potentially are walking around spreading the COVID-19 virus they do not yet know they have as symptoms take several days to develop after someone has been exposed to the virus.

We’re glad the city issued the stay-at-home resolution and we urge everyone to follow it.

But, with the way the virus is behaving and spreading, as evidenced by New Orleans and New York City and other locations around the globe, it should not take an official order for people to know they should stay at home.