An independent assessment of COVID-19 cases reported in fitness clubs and leisure facilities across Europe: a THiNK Active report
Section 6.0 - Conclusions We completed an independent evaluation of the number of reported cases of COVID-19 in fitness clubs and leisure facilities across Europe, combining mainland Europe data (collected as part of the SafeACTiVE study) and UK data (collected by the ukactive Research Institute). We employed robust data collection methods and our findings are consistent with findings from public health sources. The size of sample drawn from the two studies included in this report represents a substantial volume of data (115 million visits) recorded over a 6-month period. The report is including data from 14 countries, although the sample of participant operators (4,360 organisations) only represents 6.8% of the total number of fitness clubs and leisure centres across the continent. We therefore make no strong claims about the representativeness of our results. A total of 115,384,737 visits to fitness clubs and leisure centres from 25 weeks (from week 19 to week 43) showed a rate of positive reported COVID-19 cases of 1.12/100,000 visits (coming from 1,092 reported cases by members and 196 reported cases by staff). We identified significant attempts to implement best practice in reducing COVID-19 cases in venues following industry guidelines. Our data shows a stable flat trend on reported cases at fitness clubs/leisure centres independently of the evolution of the pandemic across each of the 14 countries included in our sample (considering the collective pandemic situation in these countries or the particular situation in each of them). This flat trend is especially relevant when the second wave of infections arrived across the whole of Europe (see figure 5.0 for reference).