Criticism of The University of Kentucky’s COVID Gym Policies

The University of Kentucky’s Coronavirus response has been swiftly implemented and experimental. The new rules have turned student life at the university upside down, and although they are wildly inconvenient, the majority of the on-campus student body headed new warnings and regulations regarding the outbreak initially. However, as the semester has progressed, I began to recognize discrepancies in the university’s Coronavirus response concerning student gyms.
Although initial regulations on gym access for students such as mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing followed universal COVID guidelines, the enforcement of these baseline rules has been questionable.
At the beginning of the semester, UK gym-goers learned the new rules. Students had to wear masks at all times when they are not actively exercising, try to stay 6 feet apart and avoid groups larger than 2, and bring their drinking bottles as water fountains had been closed. These rules are perfectly logical to keep the gyms from becoming hubs of Coronavirus infections. However, these rules were only as effective as they were understood and enforced.
The university delegated enforcement of the COVID guidelines within the gyms to the attendants on staff at the facilities. It should be noted that these attendants are almost exclusively students who were looking for a simple way to make money on campus. In regard to the rules, these attendants were poor enforcers. The vague standard for the mask rule that allows people to remove their masks while actively exercising made enforcement of the rule nearly impossible. Meanwhile, the university did not shutdown machines that were closer than 6 feet apart or find a way to spread them out effectively. So, 6 feet apart rule became tenuous at best. So basically, due to an unwilling staff and rules that lacked clear guidelines, the gyms became a free for all.
On top of the university’s failure to state easily understood rules for gym-goers and its employees, it cut back on gym hours and restricted locker use. The gym hours were cut from 6 am to 12 am to 6 am to 10 pm. The locker rows that students use to store their items were locked with only one locker for every six feet open. A pointless effort when seconds after leaving the lockers, the student will inevitably be on a machine less than 6 feet from someone else. By cutting back the gym hours, the university unintentionally increased the sheer volume of students in the gym at any given time. The amount of open gym time decreased with Coronavirus, but the number of students using the gym each day increased as it does every year the freshman class grows. And this influx of students was met with a total drop in the number of available lockers. Maybe the university figured fewer lockers would mean fewer students in the gym at a time, but if that was the goal, they would have been much more effective at keeping numbers low with a headcount and maximum capacity. Instead, they eliminated locker space for the majority of the students in the gym.
In conclusion, the University of Kentucky’s Coronavirus response in on-campus gyms has been a cluster, to say the least.