EDINA, Minn. — With many public beaches and pools closed due to COVID concerns, some families are finding their gym is the best place to cool down.
Lifetime in Edina re-opened to their members a month ago and with the recent heatwave, the pool has been really busy. Lifetime Aquatic Director, Megan Mulligan, says safety is their number one priority.
"Everyone is really excited that the pool is open," said Mulligan. "It's definitely great for a hot day."
So besides the usual advice of "No running around the pool" and "Don't swim for 30 minutes after eating," Mulligan says we are in a new era of pool safety.
"The CDC has no evidence that the virus spreads through humans with properly chlorinated pools, so with that we are making sure to just have extra measures with cleaning protocols with cleaning multiple times a day," said Mulligan.
Since swimming is deemed safe, we wanted to see how a normally crowded pool would look with restrictions and social distancing guidelines in place.
Before coronavirus, one of the upstairs pools at the Lifetime in Edina had a limit of 96 people.Now at 50% capacity, that shrinks to 48 people, where members are urged to stay 6 feet apart.
"The members have been really great just listening to our policies in place and reading the signs that we have up there," said Mulligan. "With that, our lifeguards haven't had to enforce the policy too much. Everyone wants to social distance."
Socially distanced people, chairs, and swim lanes: Lifetime's staff is working around the clock to make sure people can enjoy themselves and feel safe while doing so.
"They've made it really easy for us to carry out a normal day even though it does look a little bit different," said Mulligan.
Not only does Lifetime make sure the pool is properly chlorinated, pool fitness equipment and pool noodles are sanitized before and after each use.