Month: September 2021

The Randolph Arts Guild issued a press release earlier today announcing the cancellation, for the second year in a row, of the Asheboro Fall Festival, which was scheduled to take place on October 2 and 3 of this year.

This news will disappoint many across our community and will have a negative economic impact on numerous non-profits and small businesses across the county and the region, but given the refusal of so many members of our community to get vaccinated against Covid-19, wear masks properly, if at all, and practice social distancing, this was not only predictable, it was preventable.

The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of a few leaders, especially county and municipal commissioners, school board members, and others who hold positions of influence in our community. These failures of leadership amount to a dereliction of duty in most cases, because most of these people know better, but for the sake of political expediency, they have chosen to encourage risky behavior that has and will continue to cost our friends and neighbors their health, their livelihoods, and in some cases their lives.

Vaccines work, and Covid-19 vaccines are no exception. No, they won’t prevent you from catching or transmitting the coronavirus, but they do not alter your DNA. Nor do they make your testicles swell or cause impotence (Ivermectin and venereal diseases do cause those problems).

The vaccines are safe for almost everyone, and one (Pfizer) has now been fully approved for anyone over twelve years old. Taking the vaccine does not make you a sheep, but it greatly reduces the odds of getting sick enough to be hospitalized or dying. Getting vaccinated helps slow the spread, and therefore the potential mutation of the virus into something even more dangerous.

Please, be an adult and get your shots. Thousands of us across the county have already done so with only a handful of very rare complications. You are far more likely to get food poisoning from a local fast food joint than you are to get sick from taking a Covid-19 vaccine.

Vaccines work. Be a warrior, not a wuss. Take your shots.