Latvian Health and Fitness Association, which unites the leading sports clubs of Latvia urges the Cabinet of Ministers to review its decision to prohibit sports training by differentiating restrictions by sports and types of training to avoid a collapse of sports and fitness industry in Latvia and reduction of sports activities, which are also important for public health.

Sports clubs fully support the necessity to introduce unbiased restrictions in Latvia in order to reduce the spread of Covid-19 infection, emphasises the Head of Latvian Health and Fitness Association (LHFA) Gints Kuznecovs (Gints Kuzņecovs). At the same time the recently introduced restrictions are disproportionate and controversial and fail to reduce a range of actual risks. Therefore, LHFA has sent a letter to the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Economy urging to reconsider the introduced restrictions and allow group trainings in sports clubs and gymnasiums, if they are contactless and comply with distancing, gathering and disinfection guidelines effective in the country.

Sports clubs bring to the attention of the government that the presently prohibited type oftraining at sports clubs is not a team sport, which involves continuous contact. Group training at sports clubs takes place in an organised fashion with previous registration, is lead and supervised by a trainer, gym capacity is reduced to comply with the 2 metres distance requirement, the equipment used is disinfected before and after each training session, the mat is disinfected before and after each training session, at many sports clubs a mandatory requirement is a personal towel used to cover the mat to reduce contact with the equipment even more. To prevent close contacts between the visitors of the sports clubs and employees, visitors and employees are required to wear face masks on the premises and in changing rooms of the club. And as stressed by the representatives of clubs, compared to the large shopping centres clubs are sufficiently small for the employees in order to be able to control full compliance with the requirement.

“Since sports clubs resumed their operation after the first wave of Covid-19, no official information has been received from the responsible institutions of Latvia that any Covid-19 cases have been discovered at any sports club or of any suspicion about Covid-19 virus infection,” emphasises Gints Kuznecovs. “From the moment of opening of sports clubs after the first wave of Covid-19 sports clubs have taken all the preventive safety measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 virus and invested a considerable amount of work, resources and finances to ensure a secure environment at sports clubs for the visitors and the employees taking into consideration the countrywide guidelines and globally recognised measures.”

In addition to the positive effect of sports clubs on public health the association emphasises also the contribution of the industry to the economy of Latvia, which will be significantly reduced as a result of restrictions. In 2019 sports clubs and fitness industry in Latvia had a turnover of 25 million euro, which means payment of 5,3 million euro in VAT to the state budget, the industry employs over 1500 people. The industry services 125 000 customers, which is almost 10% of the entire population of Latvia.

“To our regret due to controversial restrictions imposed by the government sports clubs will be forced to fire uncountable employees, who work as group trainers, because economic activities of sports clubs are substantially limited. From what sources should they be paid salaries or benefits, if there is no governmental financing for downtime benefits anymore?” asks the head of the industry association.

The association has also analysed the global experience to evaluate the situation in Latvia from a wider perspective. So, from 1 May to 6 August 2020 International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) carefully checked and compared sports clubs’ visitors registration data (the number of visits to a gym) throughout the world offered by several fitness clubs, for example, Planet Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Life Time and Orangetheory in countries with a known level of infection. After almost 50 million registrations during these three months period the study discovered that nominally only 0,0023 % were COVID-19 positive.

On the other hand, in Scotland after an increase in the number of Covid-19 infections the government upon careful consideration of facts chose to leave gymnasiums and fitness centres open justifying it by maintaining of public health advantages and due to the very low risk of transmission of the virus.

LHFA believes that to the correct course of action, it is crucial to balance the rights of population to health (healthy lifestyle) and continuous introduction of preventive measures against the spread of the virus.