On March 11, we met with a St. Louis pandemic and infectious disease medical director. He shared information regarding COVID-19 and precautions people should take.
First the data…
- It is not IF, but WHEN COVID-19 will spread in St. Louis
- If you know or suspect you are infected, stay away from others!
- 80% of people who become infected will experience mild to no symptoms of the virus. These individuals will skew significantly toward those who are in the best health at the time of contact.
- Community transmission will grow because people unaware of their infection will continue to come into close contact with others.
- The “typical” flu is primarily spread through physical contact or contact with surfaces with live virus present from an infected person, then touching one’s own eyes, nose or mouth. COVID-19 is spread through the same methods as the flu but also through respiratory transmission. Respiratory transmission is the added factor.
- Respiratory transmission comes from being within 3-6′ of someone who coughs, sneezes, or even talks with you for a prolonged period of time, (which is defined as more than 15 minutes.)
We understand that washing hands and cleaning equipment after each use are essential, but not enough alone! It is equally important that we practice “social distancing” which simply means separating by 6′ or more.
Thankfully, our facility is quite large and 6′ of separation is easily achievable. We will be implementing the following guidelines for facility use until this pandemic is behind us.
1) Coaches will not touch you, you will not be touching coaches.
2) No physical touch between members, talk with one another from a distance, fist bumps will resume at a later date.
3) Classes will be capped at 20 people.
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- The CrossFit area is approximately 7,000 sq ft. (11,000 in the total gym area)
- With 20 members and a coach present, we have 333 sq ft per person in the CrossFit area, plenty of room to spread out and sustain a 6′ perimeter for ourselves.
- If you cannot check into class because it has reached the 20-person limit, you will not be allowed into the class.
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4) Classes will last approximately 50 minutes, allowing us to grab mops and disinfectants to prepare for the safety of the next class.
5) Members will use the bleach solution provided to wipe down all equipment they have used prior to putting it away and leaving the workout floor.
6) If you become infected, please stay home for your full quarantine period. We will be posting “At Home WOD” workouts for you when you feel good enough that you wish you could return but know you shouldn’t.
With these measures in place, we believe that our members will be reasonably safe, and our business will have the best chance of surviving the hysteria (like the run on toilet paper) being caused by 24×7 media coverage (which is NOT to say we are not concerned, we are, which is the reason for our safety measure implementation).
If you have questions or would like to share additional precautions that we might consider, please reach out via email to [email protected]