The Central government has issued guidelines for Phase 3 of its Covid Unlockdown plan, and people employed in the hospitality industry may reasonably hope to be back at work soon. Though the details between the state and central government still need to be ironed out the plan is for Delhi hotels to reopen, a beginning to what is bound to be a very challenging phase. The decline in occupancy in India’s luxury hotels has been reported to be as much as 96 per cent since March, when seminars, conferences and events began to be abruptly cancelled. If Covid Unlockdown 2 is anything to go by when restaurants restarted in June to a dismal response, it’s unlikely that hotels will fare much better. While people are moving around between one another’s homes, nobody seems comfortable stepping out to a public place to dine. It’s unclear whether patrons are not going because they are scared of Covid, or because restaurants aren’t serving alcohol, or a combination of both. If the restaurant experience is one full of fear and suspicion, with the added aggravation of no spirits to relieve that tension, it’s hardly surprising they’re empty.
Gyms, health clubs and sports facilities were expected to open in Unlockdown 3 as well but that decision has been postponed again. The question remains, that even if they were to open, would anybody go? For decades, I have considered the gym my second home because no matter what is happening in my life, I find the time to go there. No doubt, people are itching to get back to their lives but they’re also wondering if it would be safe or wise to return to the old way of working out. Like schools, gyms by their very nature, are even in normal times hotbeds of infection. When you have a high density of people sweating and sharing equipment in an enclosed air-conditioned space, your exposure to all kinds of pathogens is that much more. There’s so much scary information about how coronavirus droplets can survive for hours in the air which means the risks of aerosol transmissions in a gym would be very high. Knowing this it seems unlikely if the gym model can survive Covid, till a vaccine is found.
Data collected from areas of Italy where the Covid lockdown was severe suggests the average weight of people residing in containment zones has gone up by 2 kilos. How lifestyles change post Covid will depend on personality types, and the trade-offs one is willing to make. Is a lower level of fitness acceptable over a higher perceived Covid risk? We may seek solace in all the money we’re saving over memberships while ruing the social and physical benefits of Zumba and body pump classes. For now, it seems that walking and biking outside is a far safer option, keeping in mind human nature and the inherent limitations of running a safe, Covid-free gym.
