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By FAITH CALLENS | Special to the Reporter

On Monday, March 16, Chelsea’s own family fitness center decided to go virtual after the discovery of the new, increased cases of the COVID-19 Coronavirus in Jefferson County.

According to the owners of the gym, Sabrina White and her husband, Wesley White, believe members should take the virus seriously and stay home.

The couple thought of the idea of “online virtual gym classes” when residents were told a couple of weeks ago by the State of Emergency officials to stay home and start distancing themselves from social activities.

The Whites said they are taking every precaution to protect their workers and members by providing extra sanitary techniques and supplies to sanitize the gym.

“We increase the number of spray bottles, paper towels, hand sanitizers, and we also have a fogging sanitizer that we’ve used that turned into a powder that is supposed sanitize and it’s a hospital grade commercial level hand sanitizer,” Sabrina White said. “We also have signs up and any person that calls and asks us questions, we have to go over all of the different sanitizers and methods that we need to do to protect ourselves.

“We also have a Facebook post out that outlines all the things that could help us stay safe. What we’ve done is canceled child care. All of our child care workers’ schedules are temporarily taken away, and I asked child care workers if they want to come in and clean more; we do have a handful of people, but most of my staff don’t want to work due to the virus, said Sabrina.”

Since the COVID-19 outbreak has spread, Sabrina said the gym has been empty and there are more people signing up for the virtual online classes.

According to the fitness center, members of the gym aren’t likely to contract the virus because they are all interacting behind a computer screen and the virtual classes have no capacity limit since they are run by an online platform such as Facebook.

The center encourages members to continue to watch their social media pages for updates and to stay home and work out virtually until the virus clears.