Submitting.
An online campaign group with thousands of members has quickly emerged on social media.
One of those to launch the campaign, strength and conditioning coach Emma Brennan who runs the Alpha Training NI facility in Carryduff, spoke to the News Letter about the negative consequences of keeping gyms closed.
While her facility has been allowed to remain open for elite athletes, including the up-and-coming lightweight boxer Paul Hyland Jnr, she said “ordinary people” also need access to training facilities – particularly in the winter months.
“It’s amazing that the government are still supporting us to train elite athletes but ordinary people need to be looking after their fitness and their health as well,” she told the News Letter.
“It will significantly reduce levels of serious illness, hospitalisation and deaths 2-3 weeks after vaccination.
“It will, in time, also reduce pressures on our health and social care system in due course when more people are vaccinated.
“However, that does not mean that individuals who are vaccinated can start behaving as if the pandemic is over for them. It is not.
“Caution and vigilance have to remain the watchwords, particularly until such times as the vaccination programme is much further advanced in the whole population.
“For a start, no vaccine is 100% effective.
“Some people who receive it will not benefit from the full protection that the vast majority will enjoy.
That’s the vital public health message, as Northern Ireland’s vaccination programme continues to roll out.
People who have received Covid-19 vaccine jabs need to keep strictly following all the measures that keep themselves and others safe from the virus. That includes staying at home and keeping their distance from people outside their households.
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Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said:
“Vaccination protects people from Covid. It will significantly reduce levels of serious illness, hospitalisation and deaths two to three weeks after vaccination. It will, in time, also reduce pressures on our health and social care system in due course when more people are vaccinated.