Chicago's Pride Parade has been canceled again, due to rising Covid infections and concerns from organizers about the popular event becoming a super-spreader situation.
Organizers had announced in May that the parade, normally held in June, had been postponed to October 3, in the hope that vaccinations would start to put the virus on the march and people who were vaccinated could gather along the parade route without fear.
"Sadly, we were nave in that belief or, a more accurate word - 'hope'," organizers said in a letter. "Everyone knows the reasons we were wrong in our estimate as to how safe things would be in the fall. Leave it at that."
The new timing of the parade in October was meant to coincide with LGBTQI+ History Month, with The Chicago Gender Society to be an entry in the Pride Parade as it has been every year since 1985 - until the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant. That mutation is responsible for breakthrough infections even among the vaccinated, as was seen in Provincetown this summer.
In the letter organizers stated that they did not feel that the parade could be conducted "safely".
"We had high hopes but we have to listen to what everyone is telling us, advising us," said Alexandria Evangelou, co-owner of Elevate Coffee told a local ABC affiliate.
But as disappointing as it is to have canceled the parade for two years running, organizers feel it is the responsible decision to make.
"It's kind of putting others head of themselves," Evangelous said. "I think it's a selfless decision.
Organizers are now looking ahead to Chicago Pride Parade, on June 26, 2022.
"We intend to have the best, most joyous, fabulous, memorable Pride Parade ever," organizers said.