“We need some kind of comparison group that’s how epidemiology works,” she said. Gurley explained that if you want to know whether going to a particular kind of business, like a gym or grocery store, is associated with transmission, you would need to compare people who tested positive for COVID-19 to people who didn’t, and see if those who tested positive were more likely to report to going to the kind of business in question. But the answer is more complicated.Ĭan contact tracing data show where transmission happens? Epidemiologist Emily Gurley, of Johns Hopkins University, said in an interview that the answer is “a very strong maybe.” Gym owners cite this data to say gyms are far from the most risky place to be. In both cases, gyms made the list but were not the largest source of new infections. New York state also released contact tracing data earlier this month showing where people got exposed to COVID-19. Washington, D.C., maintains a dashboard of where people who tested positive for COVID-19 say they have been in the two weeks leading up to the onset of their symptoms. 13 and said they had been to a business of some kind, 32 said they had gone to a gym, compared to 111 who said they had gone to a restaurant and 20 who said they had gone to a salon or barbershop. But when the choice is keep it open and people potentially end up in hospitals and overwhelm hospitals, that becomes an easy decision to make, and we absolutely regret the damage that this has done to those businesses that have done everything right.”Įarlier this week, the Pennsylvania Department of Health released data that of the 274 people who tested positive for COVID-19 the week of Dec. “The Health Department hates having to close down places. “This was not just a single gym was the problem, so it becomes difficult for us to say the only gyms that can be open are the ones that are following the rules, without us having to have staff in every gym every minute of the day,” Garrow said. Garrow also said the city Health Department has more than 50 documented cases in which people could have been exposed to the virus at a gym. People can be infectious for around 10 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He added that from mid-July till mid-November, when gyms were open, around 1% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 reported going to a gym where they could have infected other people, and 5% of cases reported going to a gym a week before the onset of symptoms. James Garrow, director of communications for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, said the agency applauds any business that opens safely, but that gyms are risky because they are indoor places where people may be close to one another and breathing more heavily than usual. McKay and Sutton are part of a group called the Philadelphia Fitness Coalition that protested in front of City Hall in November. “We would just like to know where officials are getting their information from.” “We had so many numbers of people coming in our doors since July … even with lower capacity, we had people coming through the doors and we weren’t seeing cases, there was no transmission,” Sutton said. But she had spent money to hire trainers back, buy masks and thermometers, and implement physical distancing measures to reopen safely, only to be told in November that she had to close again. Jaime Sutton, the owner of J’aime Fitness in Philadelphia, said she understood and agreed with the decision to close gyms in March when the city didn’t know as much about the virus. Gavin McKay, founder of Unite Fitness in Philadelphia, said that gym owners can completely control their environments and that his team would check people’s temperatures, make sure everyone wore masks, disinfect all the equipment, and maintain fresh air flow at all times. Gym owners also were frustrated at having to close late in the year. “All of the gyms, whether you’re on a treadmill or doing anything, they had people going around, making sure you did not remove your mask or lower it below your nose,” Lane said. There were not that many people at the gym, he said, so they could always be far apart from each other. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsorīill Lane, who lives in Philadelphia, has been back to the gym six days a week since they reopened in the summer, and he finds gyms safer than grocery stores.
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