A decision to shutter gyms in Beijing over fears of a second wave of the coronavirus could provide a warning to residents in Georgia where gyms can reopen this week.
On Tuesday, Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced that gyms in the state, along with some other nonessential businesses, would be allowed to open on “April 27 with some restrictions.” He noted that low numbers of flu-like hospitalizations in Georgia and President Trump’s three-phase reopening plan led him to the decision to open some businesses this week.
“In the same way that we carefully closed businesses and urged operations to end to mitigate the virus spread,” he said. “Today we’re announcing plans to incrementally and safely reopen sectors of our economy.”
In China, fitness centers that had been closed since January began reopening in the last few weeks as the spread of the COVID-19 virus reportedly began to die down. However, gyms in Beijing were told to shut down again over the weekend amid fears about a resurgence of the virus. The country is on high alert for new cases coming from travelers.
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Officials in Beijing hoped to jump-start the country’s gym industry after more than 200 businesses shuttered in the first quarter of 2020 because of restrictions placed on residents in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
During that time, social media workout-app Keep saw a massive spike in new users inside the nation. Data from Crunchbase reveals that Goldman Sachs and Chinese technology magnate Tencent have poured millions into the workout-from-home app, which boasts more than 200 million users.
