ANN ARBOR, MI — After being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic, recreational sports facilities at the University of Michigan will reopen Monday, Sept. 28.
A number of changes have been made to the facilities to ensure the safety and cleanliness of the spaces, according to a news release from the university.
Students and members will be required to make reservations to work out and swim and must wear face coverings while working out.
Officials say the facilities will also be operating at decreased capacities and hours to allow for more cleaning during the day.
The reopening comes after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Sept. 3 announcement that gyms could reopen under a set of strict safety conditions, including patrons wearing masks at all times and staying six feet apart. Gyms are limited to 25% capacity.
Other UM modifications include:
- Cardio and strength equipment physically distanced at 10 feet apart.
- Selectorized and some cardio equipment can now be found on gymnasium courts in CCRB and NCRB.
- Floors in strength, stretching and some racquetball areas have been marked to allow for physically distanced activities.
- Added plexiglass barriers to Welcome Center desks.
- Increased locations for disposable wipes for user cleaning.
- Touchless hand sanitizer stations.
- Increased staffing levels for cleaning.
- Personal protection equipment and required health screenings for all employees.
A new app was created to allow for contactless entry into buildings, to make facility and pool reservations and find building hours, according to the release.
Reservations started being accepted Sept. 25. However, indoor programming, rentals and all court activities like basketball, volleyball, badminton, squash and racquetball will be unavailable during the initial phase of reopening, according to the news release.
Officials announced the reopening Sept. 24, the same day UM updated its COVID-19 dashboard, which now shows more than 200 COVID-19 cases over the last three weeks. More than half of the testing for those cases came from outside UM.
Susan Ringler-Cerniglia, communications and health promotion administrator for the Washtenaw County Health Department, said that the facilities can open under state guidance, and even with the increase in COVID-19 cases in the UM community, the health department isn’t asking the university to do anything different at this point.
“At this point, it’s unclear whether that’s the beginning of a trend upward or whether additional actions need to happen,” Ringler-Cerniglia said. “Probably in the next few days we will have a better sense.”
Even before the student population returned to Ann Arbor, Ringler-Cerniglia said they started to see a trend toward more younger, healthier people testing positive or being exposed to COVID-19.
Ringler-Cerniglia said numbers for the county were lower for quite some time, but there isn’t necessarily anything different about the increase in cases around UM.
There is still a risk of exposure when people are in public and face-to-face with people not in their household, she said, but as the increase gets bigger, there is an increased risk for the community.
“That is something we’re watching very carefully,” Ringler-Cerniglia said. “It’s just difficult right at this moment to say whether things have changed. We need to kind of see what that trend does and where it’s taking us in the next few days.”
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