patrick.net

In a headline ripped straight from the Onion, Minneapolis’s flaccid Mayor and Governor are telling people to wear their masks should they go out in public to protest. Thanks for the permission! Closed down bars and businesses have made alluring targets for groups of rioters looking for vulnerable targets. The property damage in Minneapolis is incalculable, and while opening up businesses immediately would not temper the entire mood of the country, it would certainly give the public other options. Give people something to do other than either sit home or join the hordes. Hair salons, restaurants, tattoo parlors, churches, bars, clubs, movie theaters and sports venues — open them all. Public officials have all but unofficially declared lockdown is over. Now is the time to open the country — all of it. End the lockdown. Stop the riots.

We’ll know in about 10 to 14 days if the past 90 days have been worth it. Mass crowds gathered in DC, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver and the virus hot spot of New York, all ignoring the past three months of warnings from CDC experts, the White House, the World Health Organization and state officials. Should there be a spike, much like the one we’ve all been warned is bound to happen if large gatherings like these should occur, the authorities can all shame us again and give us one big ‘see we told you so!’ But as in Florida and Georgia and several other states with relaxed distancing orders, what happens if there isn’t?