Rev. William Barber has tested positive for COVID-19.
Barber, the former president of the North Carolina NAACP and current president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, announced his diagnosis in a statement early Thursday in which he praised vaccines and boosters and encouraged people to get them to protect their own health and that of those around them.
“My symptoms so far are very mild, and I am following CDC guidelines to notify close contacts and enter isolation for five days,” Barber wrote in the statement. “I want to express my gratitude for the vaccines and booster shots that prepared my body to fight the virus, and I encourage anyone who has not received a vaccine or booster, if they are eligible, to do so as soon as possible.”
“Even as we take every possible precaution to prevent the spread of this virus, new and extremely contagious variants emerge,” Barber wrote. “Throughout this pandemic I have noted that poor and marginalized people are hurt first and worst by a public health crisis. As we continue to organize and build power for a Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, DC, and to the Polls, June 18, 2022, we must do all we can to care for one another by preventing the spread of Covid. Recent estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest it would only take $50 billion to fully vaccinate the whole world. Let’s choose life over profit, and do it now.”
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