This week, new research reminds us that COVID-19 and the gym do not mix well. Indoor group fitness classes are actually a fairly effective way to transmit coronavirus, according to two new studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Both studies looked at COVID-19 outbreaks at fitness facilities in Honolulu and Chicago during the summer of 2020 – including a cycling class in which each participant became ill. This outbreak was detected in a survey by the Hawaiian Department of Health. For the investigation, contact tracers and case investigators linked 21 cases of COVID-19 to two fitness instructors who taught several classes in June and July 2020. They taught while they were infectious but before showing symptoms. visible.
One of these instructors taught a 60-minute high-intensity indoor cycling course just four hours before his symptoms began later that evening. The instructor and students were all stationed at least six feet apart, but none wore masks during training, according to the facility’s protocol, and the windows and doors were closed. The instructor confronted the class, “shouting instructions and encouragement,” the report says, and probably spreading infectious respiratory drops containing the virus. Over the next week, all 10 people who attended the course tested positive for COVID-19.
Of those infected participants, one was also a fitness instructor, who will later be admitted to the ICU for a severe case of COVID-19. But before his symptoms appeared, he taught several classes, unmasked, at another unit – including a personal training session and three small kickboxing classes just 12 hours before his symptoms appeared. Of the 11 people who were exposed that day (five of whom were also exposed to the instructor two days earlier), 10 had positive results for COVID-19 over the next few days. The two students who wore masks and one of the four clients of the instructor the previous day gave positive results.
Another CDC study looked at cases involving a 25% capacity gym in Chicago in the last week of August 2020. Of the 81 people who attended indoor intensity classes that week (most went to several), 55 will be diagnosed with COVID-19. Participants brought their own mats and weights, were subjected to symptom screening and temperature checks on arrival, and kept a distance of six feet – but were not required to wear masks during training. Out of 58 respondents, 76% stated that they rarely wore masks. (Perhaps more shocking: 22 participants who tested positive for COVID-19 went to a class either on the same day or after the onset of symptoms – including three who went to a class on the same day or after obtaining a positive test result. But some may have gone to class earlier in the day before noticing symptoms later that day.)
No report is surprising, of course, given what we know about the spread of COVID-19 and the gym. In both case studies, public health experts found that a combination of poor mask wearing, high respiratory effort, lack of ventilation in an enclosed space and extensive extended contact were among the likely factors facilitating transmission. All this is in line with what we already know about coronavirus, which spreads mainly through respiratory droplets.
The safest way to train during this pandemic is at home or outside (alone or with other members of your household). And while the risk of exposure to attending a fitness class with other people will never be zero, as reported by SELF, it is possible to make the scenario safer by moving it outside (or otherwise ensuring sufficient airflow). ) and making sure everyone uses an appropriate physical distance. and wears masks.