BOISE, Idaho — To illustrate just how fragile the coronavirus situation is, on Wednesday the downtown Boise YMCA got word that one of its members was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19, prompting officials to shut the entire facility down.
That's exactly what is supposed to happen, according to David Duro, president and CEO of the Treasure Valley Family YMCA.
Duro tells KTVB that the member, who was at the facility on Monday, began to feel ill, went to get tested and found out on Wednesday that they had tested positive for COVID-19.
At about 6 p.m. Wednesday, the YMCA sent an email to all members notifying them that the facility was closing and began following established protocols.
According to Duro, they figured out where the man went during his brief visit to the Y on Monday, with whom he may have come into contact, and then did a full top-to-bottom cleaning through the night, so that the facility could reopen Thursday morning.
"If we're going to do screening and if we're going to take these precautions, we've got to follow through on them," Duro said. "they're not window dressing, they are there for a purpose and that's to keep people safe and I think if the Y is going to react we will react with that abundance of caution and maybe even in some people's eyes overreact, but we take people's safety really seriously so we're going to do what it takes to be safe and responsible."
Duro added that they have been limiting the number of people allowed into all of their gyms, pools and workout rooms - which made it easier to work with Central District Health to make sure they completed the contact-tracing properly.
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