COVID-19 QLD GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENT AFFECTING OUR GYM -8th January 2021

To our loyal Helfi Family. As you know we have always taken COVID-19 extremely seriously.
We have put strict measures in place well and truly over and above our industry standards and well and truly above the COVID-19 SAFE PLAN expectations of our QLD Government.

We have protected all our members with our regular TGA approved COVID-19 SAFE SHIELD on all touch points, over and above our regular daily cleaning protocols.

Despite our efforts and protocols in making our gym safer than most public and commercial places, the government has made a decision to box us into a general category of non-essential services, once again.

We are disappointed with this decision, given the efforts we go to, to do our part to protect the community, over and above many.

We are astonished as to how such a hard line on closing services that are well prepared with COVID-19 SAFE PRACTICES has been mandated, yet there was not a hard enough line to put strict measures in place to prevent this virus from entering our community from quarantine and outside of Queensland.

This virus has been devastating to the community in more ways than one, and the only way it can enter is from an outside /overseas source.

Sadly, there has been plenty of time to prepare iron clad protocols to stop it from entering our community, just as they had plenty of time to issue many COVID-19 SAFE INDUSTRY PLANS to support the community.

There has been measures in place to allow professional sports, such as AFL, NRL, RUGBY, CRICKET, etc to continue, by forcing them into COVID-19 SAFE Hubs for months on end and seasons. And because of this they have been fortunate enough to get through their seasons successfully, and even with mass audiences too.

We are grateful that this COVID-19 SAFE HUB has worked successfully for these sports, and it showed that people are willing to sacrifice some freedom in order to keep their livelihood alive by living in isolated HUBS.

We are astounded, however, as to why it has not been made MANDATORY to COVID-19 SAFE HUB all workers who make contact with Higher Risk Quarantined people that already have been infected with the virus, especially after what happened in Melbourne.

These quarantined people are way more likely to pass the virus onto workers, who in turn are being allowed to access the community after shift end. How has this been allowed?

There are many people looking for work, and there would not be any shortage of people putting their hands up to work in a HUB if they were well compensated and supported, as a result of being HUBBED, shielded and isolated from the greater community, while they do such higher risk work.

To expect, innocent hard working people in our community doing the right thing, over and above what is expected, to take another hit, is concerning and not fair, when this should have been prevented with stricter and better measures in place.

Despite our concerns with how we have been let down by not being strict and uncompromising enough to stop this virus from entering our community directly from quarantine, we will respect their decision to have us close our gym facility for the requested 3 days.
We have always known things can change quickly and we have prepared ourselves to adapt accordingly.

On this occasion, we will remain flexible in continuing to support the request to shut all gyms down, even though this decision has been made without them assessing individual standards, without consideration of our strict protocols, and despite them being fully responsible for not being strict enough with preventing COVID-19 getting into our QLD community from sources outside of QLD.

As such, we will remain open today until 6pm and will re-open 6pm on Monday 11th January 2021, as per government directive.

We hope you enjoy your COVID-19 long weekend, and hope Queenslanders do the right thing, so we can go about our livelihoods without further unfair and unsupported choices and decisions.

We pray and hope, no body gets badly ill or sick from this sad situation, that should have been prevented.

And we hope our fellow 'non-essential' workers and businesses, who have been forced to close, through no fault of their own, can get through this, and are as lucky as we are in continually being supported by our local Helfi Family and community.