Axminster gym owner Aneesa California is wrong to announce she and upto 200 others will defy the lockdown rules; the nation should instead get its walking shoes on during Lockdown 2
We all need exercise and we’re all going to need to ensure we keep fit during the impending lockup-lockdown, but as the late great legend that was Dr. Thomas Stuttaford rightly pointed out in The Times regularly, we should remember that “walking every day is the route to fitness.”
Gyms, on the other hand and contrary to a myth created to bamboozle the masses into parting with membership fees, are not ‘essential’ and news that upto 200 owners of such premises are going to defy the rules from tomorrow is actually not to be encouraged.
Going further of his theory in 2004, the ‘Good Doctor’ quite sensibly remarked: “The emphasis on gyms, sports stadiums and workouts is well intentioned but perhaps not the way to ensure a healthier Briton. The way to living longer and to be healthier and athletically fitter into old age is to take regular steady exercise every day. Twenty minutes to half an hour’s brisk walk a day — preferably all in one go — is enough.”
Whilst nobody rational is celebrating ‘Bosie The Clown’s’ decision to close anywhere that generates employment and again today we most vehemently raise our objections to the shuttering of socially distanced restaurant spaces, for example, gym owner Aneesa California should not be congratulated for her announcement that she will likely refuse to close her doors.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk yesterday, “defiant” Ms. California remarked:
“Absolutely [we will stay open]… I’m in contact with around two hundred gym owners across the UK and we’re all having a discussion on [staying open] as we speak.”
“Obviously Parliament has to vote on this between now and Thursday, but we’re all pushing and applying pressure on our MPs to back us in classing us as essential.”
“‘I wouldn’t say it’s breaking the law, it’s guidance, everything they have said is guidance… We are going to take a financial impact, but this is not about money.”
“I’m in touch with legal aid and other people regarding fines, which I’m willing to pay, but, right now, we’re not breaking any law.”
Elsewhere yesterday, the BBC Radio 1 analysed the facts about “gyms and coronavirus.” In a report by Christian Hewgill and Eleanor Roper for Newsbeat, virologist Professor Jonathan Ball of the University of Nottingham was quoted. He quite sensibly stated:
“You do tend to exercise quite vigorously [in gyms], that means that you can breathe rapidly and quite deeply. Therefore, we’d expect that you could potentially produce droplets or aerosols that could go on to infect other people.”
“There’s always a risk that you might interact with someone who’s infected [without either of you knowing] and that allows the virus to transmit.”
Now readers, here’s a call to action for the coming month: Get your walking shoes on and pound those pavements.
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And it’s because of selfish pricks like this, the UK has to go into lockdown, and guess what. If you think it will only be for a month, your dreaming.