All Pain, No Gain: King Cooper Might Have Killed Your Local Gym

RALEIGH – Small-business owners were among the most vocal opposition to lockdown policies being handed down from on high at the Governor’s office, which makes sense considering how much they had to loose. Bar and gym owners, though, might have made the most noise of all, in direct correlation to the amount of pain Pandemic Panic policies had on their necessarily ‘in-person’ businesses.

Now that spring has sprung, vaccinations are continuing apace, and King Cooper is easing so many restrictions, many bars and gyms can do their best to get back to normal and make up for lost time.

But many can’t; because they’re business is dead. While the remaining watering holes have a relatively inelastic consumer base of young revelers and reliable drinkers, getting people back into the gyms is a bit harder.

The Carolina Journal notes that survey data from RunRepeat shows that COVID restrictions have decimated what gyms need to survive — consumer interest in going to the gym:

Key findings:

• • 70.97% of gym members are still not exercising at their gyms
  • 27.52% of gym members globally and 34.94% in the US don’t intend on returning, even after being vaccinated
  • 55.57% of gym members have either canceled (29.80%) or paused (25.76%) their memberships
  • Less than half (48.24%) said they would return when they themselves are vaccinated
  • Another 24.24% will return, but not until their family, friends, and loved ones are also vaccinated

Now, a lot of this can be chalked up to cultural and behavioral changes as part of the Panic itself; people realized they could work out at home just as easily. However, such panic does not exist in a vacuum; it exists among constant fear mongering about COVID that embellished risks of the virus while ignoring the risks of lockdown.

If gyms (and bars for that matter) had been allowed by King Cooper and similarly situated authorities to remain open, with simple mitigation policies, perhaps local gym-goers could have seen real life risk profiles instead of hyped-up fear conferences from Cooper?

Moreover, with a third of gym members indicating they will not return even after vaccination, we should assume Pandemic Panic has done significant damage to, not only our collective waistlines, but to our cultural processing of risk over all.

It’s just one of the many consequences of Pandemic Panic peddled by the likes of King Cooper.