‘COVID Karens’ call police on (compliant!) Fitness Connection in Toronto

By David Menzies
|
December 04, 2020

By David Menzies

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Welcome to Fitness Connection, a fantastic local gym in Richmond Hill. Full disclosure, I go to this gym!

Fitness facilities in York Region and the City of Toronto are in lockdown mode. But gyms are sort of still open in York Region. You see, while the authorities have allowed gyms like Fitness Connection to operate, the limitations are so severe it almost doesn’t make sense to open the doors in the first place.

As Fitness Connection co-owner Mike Mak told me, a gym can only have 10 people on the floor at one time. It doesn't matter how large your gym is — whether it be a mega stadium or a boutique — you can only have 10 people.

Does that make any sense? Why isn’t the number of participants based on the square footage of the gym? Wouldn’t that be a science-based approach?

Just as well — we all know that elderly people in long-term care facilities account for more than 80 per cent of the deaths in Canada. Is there any evidence that relatively young, relatively healthy people — gym going types — will drop like flies if they catch COVID?

But for the most part, bureaucrats and politicians have never had to run a business. They have no clue what it’s like to make payroll or turn a profit. Thus, what do they know? What do they care?

And get this — just a few kilometres down from Fitness Connection sits a Costco superstore. Last week, it was revealed that this store had six confirmed COVID-19 cases.

But was Costco shutdown? No it was not. And the regional health authorities wrote it off, and said they were simply “conducting usual case management.”

Meanwhile bylaw officers — tipped off by the “COVID Karens” — have descended upon the Fitness Connection gym in recent days to seek out any infractions, even though the facility is obeying all the rules. Surreal!

And how ironic! For decades, government has been advocating for people to become more active for health reasons. I’m old enough to remember the Participaction ads from the early ‘70s.

Canada has gone from trying to get everyone out and about, to Premier Doug Ford telling citizens to stay at home, order takeout, and bake cherry cheesecakes. How the fit have fallen!

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