The message is loud and clear: lockdown is over. Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is out walking the streets on a beautiful sunny day, broadcasting on Instagram Live without a mask covering her face. If our congressional representatives can stroll freely in the streets without face coverings and the dire warnings of increasing the spread of COVID-19, so can we. Enough is enough.

Token gestures toward the pandemic are still being made. 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 hoards. 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.