STAKEHOLDERS in the fitness industry have petitioned the government seeking permission to resume operations under the Low-Risk Exercise Environments, EnterSportNews can reveal.
In a letter gleaned by EnterSportNews and addressed to the Chief Coordinator of the National Response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the President’s Office and Cabinet, Agnes Mahomva, the Association of Zimbabwe Fitness Facility Owners (AZFFO) pledged to adhere to strict lines of conduct that is compliant and consistent with the current national policies to combat Covid-19.
Fitness facilities represented by this association are Total Fitness, Profitness Health Club, Empire Gym, Triton360, Innovate Sport & Health, Body Active, Kyma Fitness, MiGym, ACT Dynamics, Primal Fitness, Sweatnation Fitness, The Yard, Fitness Planet, Oxygen Fitness Centre, Shredded EnerGYM.
The other fitness and wellness centres are Eve’s Wellness Boutique, Scorpion Gym, Nu-Aquarius Gym, Xtreme Fitness, Fitness First, BodyRock Gym, Shape Your Shassy Gym, Fitness For Her Zimbabwe, ProActive Gym, Bodyworks Gym, Body Active and Evolve Fitness.
“Professional fitness facilities in Zimbabwe are important components of our nation’s health sector. They provide environments that promote healthy exercise behaviours vitally important for all people and directly combating the very health disorders that the world’s Covid-19 pandemic has identified as high risk for severe disease and deaths, namely underlying conditions like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease,” opined AZFFO in their four-page document to Dr Mahomva.
“There is also a crucial impending economic crunch in that the several fitness facilities nationwide serve as a significant employer and provider of livelihoods to over 500 people. With fitness facilities having been closed cumulatively for ten months during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns, bereft of income, the entire industry is on the brink of financial extinction; there is simply no further source of income supply for those dependant on their employment.”
The association dismissed as a perception that re-opening gyms put the nation at high risk as they are misconstrued to be conduits for high Covid-19 spreading.
“The idea that fitness facilities may be high risk for the potential spread of Covid-19 stems from the perception that they must operate as crowded, closed space, indoor environments, which is not true,” reasoned the association.
“Fitness facilities can make adjustments to meet the unique needs and circumstances of the current Covid-19 situation and implement these guided by what is legislated, practical, acceptable and tailored to the needs of all stakeholders. These measures have been tried, tested and effectively implemented during those times these facilities were operating in 2020 and 2021.
AZFFO said researchers worldwide had backed fitness facilities as a panacea to combating the pandemic and not super spreaders.
“Fitness facilities re-opened in 2020 and again in 2021 fully committed to and compliant with Covid-19 safety protocols, capacity restrictions, maximising outdoor activities and indoor ventilation along with other precautions and at no time did public health surveillance show fitness facility environments to have been ‘hotspots’ or ‘superspreaders’ for Covid-19,” said AZFFO.
“The UKActive Research Project – analysed 75 million visits to fitness facilities in the United Kingdom between July 2020 and January 2021, showing only 1277 cases occurred in people attending fitness facilities (out of 2.3 million Covid-19 cases recorded nationally in the same period) amounting to a figure of only 1.7 cases per 100,000 fitness facility visits and concluding that gyms and leisure centre are very low risk for Covid-19 transmission.
“The accumulating evidence that physical fitness and sound metabolic health are vital in preventing severe Covid-19 disease. A recent study in the USA showed that over 63% of hospitalisations due to Covid-19 were due to four cardiometabolic conditions (obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart failure), all largely a result of poor lifestyle and as we know, are both prevented and treated by people engaging in healthier lifestyles.
The experience in neighbouring South Africa where the Covid-19 death toll stands at five times higher (per million population) than Zimbabwe, the recognition of the low risk that fitness facilities pose and their importance from a health perspective is evidenced by the fact that all gyms and fitness centres in South Africa remained open throughout their recent Level 4 lockdown subject to capacity restrictions and adherence to Covid-19 preventive measures.
The effective anti-Covid-19 measures that Zimbabwe fitness facilities have adopted since 2020 substantially lower the risks of Covid-19 exposure and thereby reduce the risk of spread within their operating environments. These strategies and policies are based on:
Assessing and mitigating risk.
Promoting behaviours that reduce the spreading of the virus.
Maintaining a healthy training environment and Maintaining a healthy fitness facility operation.
The consensus reached amongst the Association of Zimbabwe Fitness Facility Owners is that all facilities, if permitted to resume their operations, will do so, subscribing to and applying the above parameters.
“This operating framework of minimum standards will promote the achievement of a sustainable low risk operating environment thereby meeting the aspirations of the membership and the workforce but at all times be compliant with the current national policies to combat COVID19. We remain committed to being a viable part of Zimbabwe’s health sector and economic fabric during these unparalleled times.” they further said in the letter.
