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South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

koreaherald.com

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Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#91

Post by kube-system »

hntrowaway837 wrote: post #84
kube-system wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how I am expected to answer that question without knowing which country you are asking me to compare.

If you need to know, France. I live in Paris, people here are very docile and obey the rules.

As an outsider looking at France's news about vaccination rates and hesitancy, it certainly doesn't look like your fellow citizens trust public health officials. Although, I've never really had the impression that French people trusted authority. Quite the opposite.

But regardless, South Korea acted way quicker than any western democracy to test and trace.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#92

Post by lifthrasiir »

leppr wrote: post #62
yongjik wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this argument. By your own argument, the government could simply close the gyms - and it even has the power! But because they feared political backlash (this wonderful thing called "democracy"), the government made a stupid compromise and settled with a lesser (and less effective) restriction, and this proves that the government has too much power?

This is an arbitrary decision that a proper democratic decision making process would not end up on.

It is not arbitrary, the very decision to limit high intensity workouts including the BPM restriction is coordinated between the government and gyms (the Korea Fitness Manager Association in this case) [1].

[1] https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5586611 "거리를 두고 기본적인 방역수칙 외에도 특히 차단해야 되는 부분들에 대한 수칙을 만들기 위해서 애를 썼고, 관련 협회들에서도 그런 측면에서 어떤 것들을 좀 차단시키고 노력하겠다, 라고 제시한 수칙입니다." (Rough translation: In addition to the basic prevention measures like social distancing, we have also tried to make a list of especially required additional measures that the related associations have agreed upon with that context.)

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#93

Post by throwawayboise »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #67
yongjik wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this argument. By your own argument, the government could simply close the gyms - and it even has the power! But because they feared political backlash (this wonderful thing called "democracy"), the government made a stupid compromise and settled with a lesser (and less effective) restriction, and this proves that the government has too much power?

In essence, closing the gyms is a straightforward action the government can take. The government is exercising their power, but the scope is limited. By allowing the gyms to remain open only if they implement a multitude of restrictions based on a tier system seems like the government is intervening with a greater scope. Closing the gym is simple, they have the authority to do that. Telling gyms they cannot run tread…

Closing the gym means the gym owner cannot earn a living, or pay his rent, or make his loan payments on the gym equipment.

Allowing the gym to remain open with restrictions helps the owner survive until the restrictions can be lifted.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#94

Post by hntrowaway837 »

kube-system wrote: post #91
hntrowaway837 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to know, France. I live in Paris, people here are very docile and obey the rules.

As an outsider looking at France's news about vaccination rates and hesitancy, it certainly doesn't look like your fellow citizens trust public health officials. Although, I've never really had the impression that French people trusted authority. Quite the opposite. But regardless, South Korea acted way quicker than any western democracy to test and trace.

They don't but they obeyed, these are different things. Also France is decently vaccinated, yes some people don't plan to because they distrust government even more after this period.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#95

Post by throwawayboise »

fy20 wrote: post #41
nicoburns wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I went for a heart checkup at the hospital recently. They were doing ECGs as normal, but they weren't doing ECGs-while-exercising due to covid risk. I think the difference between regular breathing and hard breathing due to intense exercise may be significant. My personal take on gyms would be that well ventilated ones are likely quite safe, but the most are probably not sufficiently well ventilated.

If anything I'd expect gyms to be better ventilated than offices or supermarkets. I'd imagine smelling of stale body odour isn't a great selling point for most gyms (maybe the more hardcore gyms it is?), and there's no way they are going to keep that out without decent ventilation.

My gym is in a converted warehouse. Probably 30' ceiling at least, so it's mostly open air. Lots of fans and HVAC so the air is constantly moving. It was closed from March - June of 2020. Reopened in late June with masking and social distancing as per local rules. There was an exception to the masking rule "while exercising" so basically nobody wore a mask in the gym. I returned to my every other day habit, my workout takes about 90 minutes and then I sit in the sauna for 20 minutes and then shower.

I'm not aware of any local cases linked specifically to gyms, so it seemed to work out fine.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#96

Post by kube-system »

hntrowaway837 wrote: post #94
kube-system wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider looking at France's news about vaccination rates and hesitancy, it certainly doesn't look like your fellow citizens trust public health officials. Although, I've never really had the impression that French people trusted authority. Quite the opposite. But regardless, South Korea acted way quicker than any western democracy to test and trace.

They don't but they obeyed, these are different things. Also France is decently vaccinated, yes some people don't plan to because they distrust government even more after this period.

By comparison, streets in South Korea were reported as being largely empty after around the time of their first COVID death, even though their authorities only suggested people stay home.

Sometimes, public health is in the hands of the public.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#97

Post by spuz »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #67
yongjik wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this argument. By your own argument, the government could simply close the gyms - and it even has the power! But because they feared political backlash (this wonderful thing called "democracy"), the government made a stupid compromise and settled with a lesser (and less effective) restriction, and this proves that the government has too much power?

In essence, closing the gyms is a straightforward action the government can take. The government is exercising their power, but the scope is limited. By allowing the gyms to remain open only if they implement a multitude of restrictions based on a tier system seems like the government is intervening with a greater scope. Closing the gym is simple, they have the authority to do that. Telling gyms they cannot run tread…

> Telling gyms they cannot run treadmills past 6 km/h and cannot play music faster than 120 bpm seems like a much bigger exercise of power than telling the gyms they can't be open.

This is an interesting perspective and helps to explain a little more your original comment.

It seems that your objection is not necessarily the government's authority being excessive but rather too micromanaging? This is a sentiment I think most people can relate too - in our work, we'd rather our boss give us a straight no than make us jump through a dozen hoops and red tape. But in the real world where many different liberties are at stake such as the ability for businesses to make money and citizens to stay healthy, then policing in minutiae could have real tangible benefits.

I'm not saying that I agree with this policy - just trying to highlight your sentiment about not wanting to be micromanaged might be orthogonal to your stated desire not to be oppressed by an overreaching government.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#98

Post by seriousquestion »

throwawayboise wrote: post #20
BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

"Free Democracies" are passing the weirdest restrictions. It's mind boggling just how much power our governments are allowed to wield. I'm not even a libertarian and I think this is government overreach. So you're going to allow people to work out in gyms, but playing music that's too fast is somehow too dangerous to allow? Come on. If it was a real problem you'd just close the gyms again.

There's a tendency with people in authority to want to be seen as engaged and acting responsibly, so they "do something" such as take a half step towards the more extreme response, even if rationally the half-step does nothing. Or such is my observation.

That's part of it. Another is that they tend to have authoritarian tendencies.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#99

Post by hntrowaway837 »

kube-system wrote: post #96
hntrowaway837 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't but they obeyed, these are different things. Also France is decently vaccinated, yes some people don't plan to because they distrust government even more after this period.

By comparison, streets in South Korea were reported as being largely empty after around the time of their first COVID death, even though their authorities only suggested people stay home. Sometimes, public health is in the hands of the public.

Happened here too. With the first mention of lockdown it felt like a handbrake. I frankly don't see what people could've done more. Old people had trouble getting groceries.

Re: South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

#100

Post by ryandrake »

colordrops wrote: post #38

I'm glad we are finally at a point where that skepticism around strict covid policies, such as in this thread, can be expressed without being immediately attacked. Questioning anything 6 months ago would have gotten you shut down or banned, depending on the forum.

Come on. Every COVID-related thread throughout the last year here has been absolutely crawling with deniers, misinformation, conspiracy theories, rants about freedom, anti-vaxism, you name it--basically everything that you wrap up in that "skepticism" euphemism. I can tell you how trying to combat all this garbage has been: Both sides got the roller-coaster of up and down votes. It's just absurdly politically charged.

In this case, the authorities clearly acknowledging the difficulty for businesses, looking for tradeoffs, trying to keep them open while making compromises to at least reduce the risk. But no... Even that's not enough! Everything is black-and-white now: You either have zero restrictions or it's authoritarian overreach.

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