*This blog post is the opinion of Sarah, who owns OtG. I do not speak for my instructors, students or friends, who are entitled to their own opinions and feelings. I welcome any constructive, respectful conversation on this topic* I’m starting to think I’m the only person in the leisure industry in support of this lockdown. As a self employed person who teaches in gyms and owns a full time pole dance studio, believe me when I say Im probably more fucked over than most by this situation. In the first lockdown I took a job at Tesco where the total disregard by staff and customers for Covid ended in me having to quit because I didn’t feel safe there. This time I can’t even do that If I wanted to because I’m recovering from emergency surgery. I’m newly self employed so do not get any support. My only saviour is that my business gets support as it has premises. I know more than anybody how important fitness is for mental health. 90% of the students at my studio would say they come to pole more for their mental health rather than physical. I know how much they struggle stuck at home. But look how much death and infection rates fell after the lockdown in the summer, and look how they are creeping up again now. I was starting to see more and more people cancelling at the studio in the last two weeks because they, or their household members, had tested positive. They tried the tiered system, keeping everything they could open, and it just didn’t work, cases and deaths were still shooting up like they did in March. Clearly it wasn’t enough, so the next stage is lockdown, there’s no other option. Maybe it’s my week stint in hospital that reminded me how horrible it is to be sick. But in those awkward few days when we weren’t sure if we could open when Sheffield went into tier 3, I found myself asking (from my hospital bed btw) should we be open, even if we legally could? My issue is that *most* businesses CAN be covid safe. I feel comfortable going to work in my studio, as I have taken the necessary precautions to stay distanced, sanitised and do everything I am aware of to not transmit Covid. But again, just because it CAN be safe, doesn’t mean IT IS. The problem is that there are too many people who out there who are just unable to follow the rules. On the extreme end, look at the complete disregard for any social distancing in city centres when they opened pubs and bars. On the less dramatic, I’ve heard of/seen on socials/been in gyms/studios where I’ve felt wholly uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s the business, sometimes it’s the customers. And if I’m truthfully honest, from my completely uneducated viewpoint, these are the people responsible for this lockdown. You were trusted to go out, and stay safe, and you’ve fucked that right up. Photos on social media of people grouped together. Being in an environment where I’ve been expected to do an activity that makes it very difficult to ensure distancing. People not cleaning equipment. Seeing people having a casual conversation, nowhere near distanced. Hearing how many people have been in a space and feeling literally speechless that you can have that many people in there. Apparently there is no proof that gyms do transmit Covid. But as far as I’m aware, and I’m not a virologist, politician or even scientist so please correct me if you are and I’m wrong, there’s not really any proof for anything. There’s still so much we don’t know, and very little we can confirm. We were told to quarantine fabric for 72 hours one month, and then the next, it turns out the virus can live on surfaces for 28 days. Everyone can find justification for keeping anything open. Gyms need to stay open, for people mental health! But then if gyms can open, zoos should open, it is outdoors and zoos need the money to keep the business afloat! But then is zoos open, pubs should be able to open if they have a garden, that’s outside and everyone can sit at their own table! But if pubs open, shops should be able to open because people need to buy clothes to go to the zoo and the gym and the pub! Next thing we know, bloody everything is open again, everyone is out and about, busy high streets and public transport, and here we go again. A lot of people and citing gyms/studios as an ‘essential’ business. But the workout aspect of the gym/studio is possible to do at home. What people miss is the act of getting up and going somewhere, the social aspect of the gym, the escape of it. And the social bit, is the dangerous bit. This virus is targeting the one thing we NEED as humans, social contact with others. The countries who handled Covid ‘best’ all went for lockdowns. Almost everybody is moaning that the UK wasn’t strict enough (can you see how hard I am trying to not make this about politics) on Covid, so why are we fighting the one thing that has worked? It’s hard to cancel your classes, to close your doors, facing the uncertainty of a month with no income, not seeing familiar faces. But when faced with the possibility of one of my members/students catching Covid on their journey to/from/within my studio, and either themselves or someone they have contact with in a hospital bed on a ventilator, it’s difficult to think about. Even if I’m not directly to blame, if I stay open, keep working, then it’s only fair other people are allowed to as well. I don’t want to be part of the problem, because a percentage of those people in those hospital beds will be there because the leisure industry remained open. Seeing businesses go under this year is so awful. But staying open is not the answer in my opinion. It is better and probably still cheaper to fight for the correct financial support. I had to do it for my business earlier this year, and now I may need to do it for my personal income. Don’t get me wrong, the leisure industry has to fight right now, but for the right reasons.
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