Yellow zone has little impact on arenas
Distancing is increased to three metres and masks are mandatory for users of Peterborough Sport and Wellness Centre
Peterborough’s move to a COVID-19 yellow zone will not affect arena users.
There will be some changes for users of the Peterborough Sport and Wellness Centre.
Peterborough moved from the green prevent zone to the yellow protect zone restrictions Monday because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases locally.
Brad Putnam, community arenas operations manager, said the lowering of numbers allowed for indoor gatherings in recreational facilities is specific to certain types of gyms and fitness centres but not to arenas. Arenas can continue to operate with current maximums of 22 skaters per ice surface.
“At this stage in time, there’s no further restrictions for arenas,” Putnam said. “The city is working with Peterborough Public Health right now for any additional information or direction they might give us but, at this time, the proposed requirements of yellow don’t affect our services.”
The city instituted a series of safety protocols and restrictions, in conjunction with Peterborough Public Health, for arena users in August that were updated in September. Those protocols remain in place.
Putnam said arena users were informed Saturday there would be no changes to their programs in the yellow stage, which is in place for a minimum of 28 days.
Putnam said it’s unlikely a move to an orange status would have much impact on arenas either.
“Those are questions we’ll be asking and having some dialogue with public health on to take any direction in advance of or if the reality comes that we have to move to that stage,” he said.
Putnam said the city’s four arenas are booked close to full capacity.
“The increased cleaning requirements has reduced our overall capacity and the demand has contin
“The city is working with Peterborough Public Health right now for any additional information or direction they might give us.” BRAD PUTNAM COMMUNITY ARENAS OPERATIONS MANAGER
ued to be quite high from all our regular users down to one-off requests,” he said.
The Wellness Centre posted changes to its user policies online at bit.ly/3lYCkL7 on Sunday.
Fitness centre users must wear masks at all times except when exercising and now be a minimum of three metres apart. Additional equipment has been made unavailable to insure proper distancing.
The sizes for aqua and land fitness classes have been lowered to 10 and for gentle aqua sessions it’s reduced to eight.
All facility access is by reservation and users are limited to 90 minutes per visit.
The gymnasium’s drop-in sports schedule has been updated and a maximum 16 people are permitted in each gym.
There’s no change to existing processes for swimming lessons and registered programs including Ninja Kids and pickleball, according to the posting. All other previous health and safety protocols remain in effect.
The provincial framework for sports and recreational fitness facilities in the yellow zone include capacity limits of 10 indoors (classes), 25 outdoors (classes) and 50 indoors in areas with weights or exercise equipment unless limited by everyone being able to maintain three metres from each other.
Spectators are allowed — 50 indoors and 100 outdoors — but they must be able to maintain a distance of two metres from others and be masked.
A limit of 50 people per room is permitted if operating in compliance with a plan approved by the office of the chief medical officer of health.
Team or individual sports must be modified to avoid physical contact with a maximum of 50 people per league. There are exemptions for high performance athletes and parasports.
In recreational settings, there’s a limit to music volume to conversation level to prevent shouting by instructors and members of the public.
As well, face coverings are required except when exercising and spacing between patrons is increased to three metres for areas of a sport or recreational facility where there are weights or weight machines and exercise and fitness classes.
Contact information is required for all patrons and attendance for team sports. Also required is a reservation for entry to a facility for individuals and teams.