As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes on the 5th of May, 2020, judging by the announcement of the Fitness Community Initiative, a group established during the coronavirus crisis to protect the rights of those in the profession and promote the importance of regular exercise, a meeting is currently being held to define the conditions for the reopening of Croatian gyms, based on proposals made by the profession.
The Initiative claims that the operations of Croatian gyms can start again as early as mid-May.
This news was published by Orlando Lopac, owner of OrlandoFit Croatia, on his Facebook profile. Lopic is otherwise one of the participants in the Initiative, which addressed the National Civil Protection Headquarters with the aim of reopening Croatian gyms and other such facilities as soon as possible. Croatian gyms employ about 20,000 people across Croatia.
As Lopac announced yesterday, a meeting will be held to develop the necessary measures and recommendations for the safe and acceptable operation of Croatian gyms and other types of sport and recreation centres, as well as defining date frameworks within which the ban on their functioning would work.
“I received a firm promise that as the Fitness Community Initiative, we’ll be transparently involved in the development of these measures and recommendations, and that the basis will be the list we submitted to them. I expect that in the period between the 15th and the 18th of May, we’ll be able to start working again,” state Lopac, recommending that his colleagues in the field seriously begin developing their financial and business plans in the coming days in order to ensure maximum security in the gyms and other sport and recreation centres.
The letter sent by the Initiative to the Croatian Institute of Public Health and the Central State Office for Sport states that professional sports and recreation centres are usually and regularly characterised by a high level of hygiene, such as the changing of clothes and shoes on arrival, the use of towels, the regular disinfection of gym equipment, as well as good ventilation.
They suggest that the following measures be introduced for Croatian gyms and other such facilities:
1. The recommended (not mandatory) use of protective masks and gloves for all employees
2. The installation of dispensers with antiseptic/hand sanitisers at the entrance to each gym/facility
3. The placement of a minimum of three portable disinfectants for the gym equipment covering every 50 square metres of space
4. The recommendation of installed medical covers or specialised disinfection pads for footwear in locker rooms
5. The mandatory use of clean towels during training in order to protect the surface on which you sit, lie down or exercise or in some other way make physical contact
6. The recommendation to adhere to the rules on the number of users per unit of time indoors: 15 people per 100 square metres of space, which provides a distance of more than 2 metres, and also a maximum group of 15 participants in an open space with a minimum distance of 2 metres kept between them
7. The possibility of the unobstructed use of the locker room and shower cabins with an increased scope of disinfection of those same premises
8. The ensuring a sufficient amount of time for ventilation of the space when changing user groups
9. The prohibition of access to the premises or the training of persons who have been prescribed a self-isolation order, as well as persons with visible symptoms of illness and fever, or persons for whom there is recorded information that they are passive carriers of the coronavirus infection
10. When exercising outdoors, the disinfection of equipment and props is mandatory immediately after their use
11. The serving of hot and cold drinks should be done exclusively in disposable glasses and cups
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