Photo from B.C. Centre for Disease Control
Like many of you during this pandemic, I have really wanted to get back into the gym and keep fit and feel good for my health but especially for my baseball season each summer. Since the pandemic hit exactly a year ago all the gyms have been closed and yes the lack of working out is definitely taking its toll on all of us. I hear it all the time, people wishing they could go workout for peace of mind, for mental health as well as physical health. Business owners who run gyms also going on TV to state their case about why their fitness businesses should open up for the public. Unfortunately we have seen an ugly side to these re-open campaigns, business people doubting the need for lockdowns and masking and wanting to do things the "American way", open up everything right now.
The Quebec Government faced a lot of pressure to let different businesses open up due to different reasons like financial reasons and gyms were among them. Now I definitely would have loved going to workout in a gym but I understand that the health experts are saying we should not and if that is what they are saying then who am I to yell and scream to the government to open them up? I understand the business part of it and the government should assist business owners to get through these hard times but it should not be up to business owners to be guessing that everything would be ok and safe to have people come back and workout even with strict rules for working out because if we have learned anything from this pandemic it is that as much as we say "We are in this together", there are people who are in it for themselves and not thinking about public safety. The Quebec government decided to let gyms open on March 26th as a result of some declining case numbers in the province and that was great even though gyms still had to have strict safety measures in place and therefore you would think that not only the gyms but the public using the gyms would respect provincial guidelines to prevent any outbreaks. Then this happened...
A Quebec City gym has allegedly been linked to 68 COVID cases and within hours that increased to 120 and within several more hours it increased to 141 COVID cases. These cases allegedly have been linked to more outbreaks in 20 workplaces as gym users go to work and spread the disease around. After all the protesting and public campaigning that gym owners have done in Quebec, to have this happen so early after the government allowed gyms to reopen is not a good sign. The responsible gyms who are actually making sure their clients follow guidelines now have to close back down in the Quebec City region and two other regions as the provincial government imposed another 10 day lockdown.
If we have learned anything from this pandemic it is that as much as we say "We are in this together", there are people who are in it for themselves and not thinking about public safety.
This gym that is at the centre of this new outbreak is alleged by the government to have been lax in its sanitary measures. A government spokesperson said “It's no big surprise to us that the number went from 68 to 120, because several people were not observing sanitary measures,” also adding that it wouldn't be a surprise if the number increases. I wouldn't be surprised either. Even the owner of the fitness gym is in hospital with COVID, the owner who shall not be named here has a history of defying the government's guidelines and now says that it was hard to enforce the safety measures but you have to wonder if they even tried as the government found that clients were not being screened for symptoms upon arrival and working out while not respecting physical distancing. Remember what I said earlier, we are supposed to be in this together but we have learned through this that some people are in it for themselves. You do not need a gym to make you responsible about COVID and knowing how to conduct yourself in public in these times, even when working out.
This case should be a cautionary tale and a hopeful learning lesson for everyone not just those who now have to worry about their health and the health of people they may have infected. As much as I want to go back to a gym I have to ask myself how safe is it really even if the gym is very strict in its guidelines and are the other clients being respectful of those guidelines as well? I don't want to say that there are no gym owners out there who are being responsible but it is something to take serious before we start going back. The last thing we want with summer coming is to end up in a situation where the government has to lockdown the public like we have seen so far in 2021 where Quebec has been under curfew since January.
Comments