Fear drives cowardly decision to go Red

To the board of health and the Aspen/Snowmass community:

I can’t keep my mouth shut. High incidence rates of COVID-19 continue to plague our Aspen community, but isn’t that a good thing in a weird way? We are not wearing blinders, we know where the cases are, we are testing people like crazy, and quarantining and isolating when we have been exposed. Hospital admittance rates for COVID-19 are miniscule -37 since March.

Don’t shut down the economy. If you need to hire more contact tracers, hire more contact tracers. Can’t afford it? Start a GoFundMe or ask for volunteers from the community. Do what business owners and entrepreneurs do everyday of their life — figure it out and keep pushing forward.

Shutting down our economy is cowardly and ill-advised. Stand up tall, push through, work your blank off and ask for help if you need to, but don’t be a coward! Rising numbers are not what we need to be afraid of. We should be afraid of overrun hospitals and rampant unemployment and hunger.

We don’t have overrun hospitals, but we will soon have rampant unemployment and hunger. I ask the community to stand by business owners and demand that we all be allowed the right to work. We are following the rules and then getting the beep beat out of us. It doesn’t make any sense. Fear is the real enemy here.

Wendy Mitchell

Owner, Meat & Cheese Restaurant and Farm Shop and Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar