The Moultrie City Council approved the first reading Thursday of an emergency ordinance that will close many local businesses and limit the activities of virtually everyone else in town. Final approval is expected at a called meeting at noon Friday at Moultrie’s Municipal Building.

This will be difficult to take, even though we recognize that it’s the right thing to do.

The ordinance limits gatherings on city property to no more than five people — that includes city parks. It closes the dining rooms of all restaurants in the city; take-out service is allowed but customers cannot enter the building. If an establishment is licensed to sell alcohol for on-premises consumption, they are now entitled to sell it for off-premises consumption instead. 

The ordinance closes “gyms, fitness centers, pools, social clubs, amusement facilities, bowling alleys, pool halls, theaters, massage parlors, nail salons and any other similar facility, any facility used for an activity that involves prolonged physical proximity of individuals, and any facility used for entertainment, social, grooming or general health and wellbeing purposes.” Some limited exceptions were added at Thursday’s council meeting.

In all other establishments — such as grocery stores and pharmacies — consumers must maintain at least six feet between themselves and others. If that’s not possible, the establishment can allow no more than 10 people inside at a time.

All public and private gatherings of more than 10 people occurring outside of a household or living unit are prohibited. 

The ordinance spells out details of a curfew that was announced by Mayor Bill McIntosh on Monday.

While it is possible the council could make other changes from the original ordinance before today’s final vote, we don’t expect to see that. City staff and the city attorney went to great lengths to write this ordinance in keeping with state and federal laws. Council is unlikely to change it much for fear of making it invalid.

Once approved, the state of emergency will be in effect for 15 days.

Colquitt Regional Medical Center reported five positive tests on Thursday, but it has 71 tests that are still pending. Some of those are expected to be positive, and due to a scarcity of tests, many people believe there are untested people with the virus in our community. 

Other communities in America have seen skyrocketing caseloads that stretch their ability to treat sick people.

The national strategy has been to encourage people to stay home both so that they won’t catch the virus and, if they have already caught it but don’t show symptoms, so they won’t give it to anyone else. The goal hasn’t been so much to keep everyone well as to keep them from getting sick all at one time. Our health care system is not prepared to handle the number of sick people this virus produces in a short time, so the plan has been to spread them out over time.

Other communities are showing us that voluntary compliance is not working. We very much hate that it’s come to this, but the city council is right to enact these emergency measures.

Let us all hope 15 days is enough and we can be closer to normal by mid-April.