Gyms left gasping for air as level 4 lockdown takes effect
The health and fitness industry says it’s taken aback by government’s decision to close gyms amid the devastating spike in Covid-19 infections.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced stricter level 4 regulations on Sunday evening.
The adjusted regulations, gazetted by Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will see gyms, fitness centres and cinemas closing their doors for the next two weeks.
Fit SA has since written to Cooperative Governance and the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa in a bid to renegotiate the regulations.
“We implore you to look at the statistics published by Disaster management on the Garden route where the second Covid-19 wave was found to have started, where transmission rates in gyms was found to be 1%, the lowest of any industry, including shopping malls which had double the infection rate of gyms,” says Fit SA spokesperson Grant Austin.
“Our gyms are super-vigilant on our covid protocols and this is evidenced by the low transmission rates. In addition we see our industry as an essential service as physical activity reduces all co morbidities and builds our immune system which has been proved to be our best chance of combatting Covid-19.”
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He adds there are fears for the health of its members and the job losses that await the industry.
“We’re mostly afraid of people’s health deteriorating, number 1. Number 2, we’re afraid of our industry and the roughly 30,000 jobs that we have because in the last lockdown there were some severe casualties.
“We estimated that about 30% of the gyms closed down because they couldn’t carry on. The last lockdown was also set for 14 days or 21 days and it carried on for 5 months. We’re definitely not an industry that should be shut,” says Austin.
Austin further raised some concern that the closure of gyms could impact athletes training for the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games.
“Fit SA and Planet Fitness have sponsored the Olympic teams who are currently in training for the Tokyo Olympics. Many of them are making use of our facilities and their continued training is vital to improve their chances of success.
“It may seem frivolous in comparison to the pandemic, but we have proven our gyms are safe spaces and we all know how badly our country needs a good story to pick us up out of our current depressed state,” he says.
“A few medals at the Olympics would galvanise us as winners as it has done with our other sporting teams excelling in the last few years.”
Listen to Austin below: