Shutdowns aren’t the answer for Aspen, Pitkin
The following letter was sent to Aspen and Pitkin County officeholders and members of the board of health.
I have been thinking seriously about solutions instead of lockdowns. Like many of you, I have spent a few decades of winters in Aspen working and playing.
Every single winter we got the Aspen crud or the flu and all our friends and family got it. We would moan and groan for a week or so, then get back to work.
I never saw a statistic how many elderly people in the valley actually died of it — but probably more than three — like now from COVID-19 in the past 10 months.
We really need to consider the “big picture” now. My four house guests from Minnesota have all had COVID-19 so cannot give or get it at this time. Their ages are 19 to 45. They were “sick” for one day to two weeks. They took Tylenol. The other day they stopped at the local grocery store and said they had never seen it so crowded. Maybe a solution this week to another punitive measure to a small group of businesses is to enforce what Orange-plus means?
How about opening more of the restaurants that must follow your sanitary procedures so there are fewer large house parties?
Have you followed those with positive tests here of how sick they actually are? Is this now becoming the crud or flu of years past and we infect each other to build important immunity? How about more distribution of vaccines to protect those with comorbidities and those over 70, 80?
Please think about the devastation imposed on the younger population in this valley by more shutdowns, and consider checking on those businesses that may not be following rules instead of punishing the entire population.
Thank you for thinking out of the box.
Lorrie B. Winnerman
Aspen
