SELF – This week, new research provides a stark reminder that COVID-19 and the gym don’t mix particularly well.
Indoor group fitness classes are actually a pretty effective way to transmit the coronavirus, according to two new studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Both of the studies looked at COVID-19 outbreaks that took place at fitness facilities in Honolulu and Chicago during summer 2020—including one cycling class where every participant ended up sick.
That outbreak was detected in a Hawaii Department of Health investigation.
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 they had noticeable symptoms.
One of those instructors taught a 60-minute high-intensity indoor cycling class just four hours before his symptoms started later that evening.
The instructor and students were all stationed at least six feet apart, but none wore masks while working out, per the facility’s protocol, and the windows and doors were closed.
The instructor was facing the class, “shouting instructions and encouragement,” the report says, and, presumably, spreading infectious respiratory droplets containing the virus.
Over the next week, all 10 people who attended the class tested positive for COVID-19.
Of those infected participants, one was also a fitness instructor, who would later be admitted to the ICU for a severe case of COVID-19.
But before his symptoms came on, he taught multiple classes, unmasked, at a different facility—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 would test positive for COVID-19 over the next few days … CLICK SOURCE BELOW TO READ MORE.
