By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
Get ready for the song and dance that inevitably follows the rise of positive COVID-19 rates in our community.
What I mean by that is all those events you looked forward to enjoying this fall and winter, the ones you missed out on last year, could be in jeopardy of not happening again this year.
I didn’t think it was possible either. I felt we have learned enough last year on how to safeguard folks from the pandemic and organizers were smart enough and proactive enough to protect patrons of their events. But it appears the best prevention is not holding the event at all, and those organizers shouldn’t be criticized for it.
This week, Brackett ISD closed its schools because positive numbers climbed rapidly in recent days. It’s a precautionary measure, and one I’m sure residents there don’t want to repeat going forward. In Crystal City, football games have been closed to the public.
Locally, the Adventure on the Creek, a wildly successful event designed to benefit the local Education Foundation has been postponed until next spring. The annual Del Rio Comic Con, which was postponed last year due to the pandemic, announced that it, too, would be postponed again this year. This past weekend, the Del Rio High Queens volleyball team opted out of a tournament because of the threat of the COVID-19 variant. Better to be safe than sorry.
If the trends we’ve seen in the past continue, then this is just the start.
I don’t like events that are canceled or postponed for any reason other than the weather, and even then I’ve seen some events get the delay because of a couple of drops of the wet stuff. But when it comes to dealing with the health of the populace, and in some cases it becomes a life and death situation, then sometimes the best plan of action is to just say, “We’ll try again next year.”
Nobody asked for the pandemic. Nobody decided the world’s population needed to be trimmed a bit and the best way to do so was to create a super virus that now affects all manners of people of regardless of their age. Nobody likes to be told what to do or when to do it, yet here we are again. Time to get used to it.
The worst part is there’s kind of no going back now. Having to live in a post-pandemic world seems odd in 2021, but we’re making the best of it. That may mean not being able to enjoy some of the things like we used to, but that’s a small price to pay to keep folks healthy and not spreading a virus that has hit youth harder this go round than last year.
To those organizers who may be contemplating postponing, canceling or simply changing the attendance rules for their events, please know that there are folks who will support you even if it doesn’t seem that way. We’d rather be able to eventually come back and support you at a later date then risk it all for one weekend of fun.
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Brian Argabright has been a journalist for nearly 25 years. An award-winning writer and photographer, he has covered sports, features and much more during his career. Contact him at drnhsports@gmail.com
