Dear Editor:

Our letter is with regard to the March 22 article about the Park County Republican Party Convention that was held on March 12. We want to apologize for a poor choice of words that was used at the convention, and then quoted in the article.

A resolution was under discussion that would have expressed support for prohibiting all health care mandates. We felt that this was too broad in its scope and wanted to amend it. Unfortunately, the wording that got used during argument, in the heat of the moment, was: “While we all know COVID was a hoax, if it were ebola I’d be OK with some mandates.”

We want to clarify that this was an accidental and poor choice of words that does not reflect our true thoughts about COVID. What we were attempting to express would more accurately have been stated as, “While the severity of COVID and the response to it has perhaps been exaggerated at times, we still feel there should be an ability on the part of the appropriate authority to enact health measures in case something much more serious like ebola virus were to start spreading in the community.”

Unfortunately, with it being towards the end of a long and contentious meeting, and the awkwardness of public speaking, what came out instead was the original quote mentioned above. We want to apologize for that, and to make clear that we do NOT think COVID was a “hoax.”

We are well aware that many people have been very ill or died from COVID, and that it was and still is a serious problem in many parts of the country and world. We ourselves have always tried to take all the recommended precautions and to follow the health care mandates that were enacted. Again, our apologies for those words, especially to anyone who has been personally affected by COVID or lost loved ones to it.

Anthony and Elizabeth Spiering

Powell