Cancel that parade
The city of Chicago joined Dublin and Boston last week and canceled St. Patrick’s parades planned for the weekend. Good call.
As much as Chicagoans and the 500,000 or so attendees enjoy the downtown festivities each year on a Saturday, the potential for spread of the coronavirus is a real concern. The traditional lime-dyeing of the Chicago River, the marching bagpipers and yes, the politicians, draw an annual all-day body-to-body crowd along the parade route. It spills into hotels, bars and restaurants throughout downtown.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot also canceled the South Side Irish Parade scheduled for Sunday, with the hope of rescheduling it in the future. That parade kicks off with packed Catholic Masses, followed by hundreds of family house parties and jammed pubs along Western Avenue.
This year, though, there is just too much risk from COVID-19. Raise a pint to safety—and to Mayor Lightfoot’s City Hall.
The fact is, these types of cancellations will continue to unfold as the virus spreads. Expect sporting events, kids’ activities, parties and concerts to get postponed or axed in the coming weeks as cases of coronavirus spread. For the safety of vulnerable populations, that attention is justified.
We support Chicago’s decisions to skip the parades because Lightfoot, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other officials thought through the risk factors and consequences— and prioritized the public’s health and safety. Countless government officials, business leaders and others are going through the same process across the country. They’re weighing the threat and taking actions at short-term cost to protect people from a potentially serious illness.
The best advice is to treat coronavirus as a potentially dangerous foe to be contained and defeated. That means avoiding tightly confined areas if possible, understanding that the virus can live on surfaces for a short period of time and self-isolating if you suspect you may be infected.
The larger point, perhaps, is that this is a time to view our pending decisions—about workplaces, about travel, about gatherings—through the prism of public health.