WASHINGTON — Mayor Muriel Bowser is threatening residents of Washington, DC, with 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak.

The threat of jail is alarming residents and civil libertarians who point out that at least five inmates tested positive for COVID-19 in the city's 1,700-inmate jail near Capitol Hill.

"Our message remains the same: stay home," Bowser, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. The stay-home order has exceptions for grocery shopping and work deemed essential. Outdoor recreation such as running is allowed, but cannot involve people outside of a household.

The order is similar to dictates in neighboring Maryland and Virginia, but shocked residents of Washington, where there are just 401 of the nation's 160,000 confirmed cases.

"This is insane. Criminal penalties?" tweeted Mercedes Schlapp, President Trump's former White House director of strategic communications and an adviser to his re-election campaign.

Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, told The Post "we would be deeply concerned" if anyone actually was arrested for violating the order.

"When we saw this order, we thought, 'You want to send them where?'" Hopkins said. "People being arrested for that causes all sorts of problems that are antithetical to the goals of lessening the virus."