Revisions gym6/13/2023 Surfaces are still decidedly low risk,” Gonsenhauser says. It’s still transmitted through respiratory droplets and aerosols. “This still holds true with the delta variant. According to an April 2021 statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the risk of contracting COVID-19 from contaminated surfaces or objects in nonhospital indoor settings is now considered very low. The good news is that research increasingly shows that people largely aren’t getting sick with COVID-19 from touching surfaces contaminated with the virus, Dr. “But many gyms are enclosed, high-touch, and close-proximity spaces.” Ventilation and how much stale air you’re breathing in depends, of course, on the design of your gym, Gonsenhauser says. (Full-out intensity exercise that leaves you gasping for breath can increase that resting breathing rate up to 20 times). Moderate-intensity exercise can increase your breathing rate to 7 to 10 times your at-rest breathing rate, according to the University of Florida. Virus particles in these respiratory droplets and aerosols can make their way to you and me both by floating through the air (until gravity pulls them down), as well as by landing on surfaces that people touch and then carry virus particles to their eyes, mouth, or nose.Īnd exercise - during which you’re exerting yourself more and breathing more heavily - makes you expel more respiratory droplets and aerosols. Research continues to show that the primary way people are getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - is by coming in contact with infected people (and coming in contact with those respiratory droplets and aerosols), explains Mary Rodgers, PhD, principal scientist of infectious disease research for Abbott, a healthcare company that has created multiple molecular and antibody tests for the COVID-19 virus. RELATED: Why Exercise May Help Protect Against COVID-19 Complications How Is COVID-19 Spreading at the Gym? If you’re unvaccinated, Gonsenhauser suggests exercising at home or outdoors - or if you do go to the gym, be sure to follow safety precautions while you’re there, including wearing a mask, social distancing, and disinfecting your hands and equipment after use. “But for unvaccinated people, going to the gym is high risk because of how contagious the delta variant is and how concentrated the cases are.” For fully vaccinated individuals, returning to the gym is a low-risk activity in most communities,” Dr. “Gyms in general are probably one of the highest-risk spaces of all of our reopening and returns,” he says - but vaccines, updated safety precautions, and new variants of the novel coronavirus have changed (and continue to change) the equation. And gyms are high-touch, close-proximity spaces where vigorous exercise increases the range at which people exhale respiratory particles because they’re breathing more heavily, says Iahn Gonsenhauser MD, chief quality and patient safety officer with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. People get sick with COVID-19 when respiratory droplets and aerosols carrying the virus come in contact with the eyes, mouth, and nose. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, gyms and fitness centers have been places where risk of transmission of the novel coronavirus is high.
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