NORMAL, Ill.- Staying healthy through a pandemic is even more difficult when fitness centers and gyms have to operate at less than full capacity, but the Illinois State Recreation Center is navigating through COVID-19 and exercising every avenue.
Limited capacity meets different criteria with the state of Illinois and university of health and wellness centers, with knowing that capacity the ISU Recreation Center lets people register in advance.
“If we fill up and we do not let any walk-ins. If we do not fill up we can allow walk-ins to come after all of those who register have opportunity to come in, it is actually pretty easy to mange that with the software we use,” said
When the rec utilizes the climbing wall, classes and the swimming pool the capacity goes up but students have register to use those facilities in advance.
With the spike in case in McLean County, now reporting 80 new cases today, Aug. 28, 2020, cleaning and maintenance is becoming harder to monitor and guarantee.
“We encourage everyone who comes into the facility wipes down their equipment prior to and after their use to protect themselves,” said Associate Director Matt Seibring. “We are doing our best to educate people on how to clean and take care of themselves. We can’t guarantee that equipment is wiped down between each use, the only way we can guarantee it is if they use their own personal responsibility.”
The rec has staff go around cleaning the facility throughout the day, they changed their scheduling in order to catch all the touch points like railings, faucets and door handles all day long.
“Every hour we are shutting down for a half a hour so are student team can clean all the equipment,” said Seibring. “We have more student employees working to attempt to help distancing and cleaning”
There isn’t anywhere else on campus shutting down every hour to clean.
“We’re more conservative than any other state institution in Illinois, we are doing much more when it comes shutting down, cleaning and doing deep-cleans,” said Seibring. “We are intentionally trying to keep our students safe.”