Pure Group CEO Colin Grant throws fitness chain’s weight behind Hong Kong government’s Covid-19 vaccination drive

Hong Kong’s largest fitness chain, Pure, which has 22 locations across the city, has begun a drive to get its employees vaccinated
Local gyms find themselves on edge as a recent cluster has been linked by the Centre for Health Protection to its industry

Coronavirus Hong Kong

Patrick Blennerhassett

Published: 8:06pm, 18 Mar 2021

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Hong Kong’s largest fitness chain has thrown its weight behind the government’s vaccination drive in a bid to help the local industry recover after a number of shutdowns.

Pure Group chief executive officer Colin Grant showed off the Band-Aid patch he got after getting his vaccine, and said he made sure almost 25 per cent of his 1,500, employees, which are spread out over 22 gym and yoga locations across the city, already vaccinated.

“And another 50 per cent are thinking about it and want more information,” said Grant, noting Pure has around 12,000 clients on a daily basis. “So we have to take the initiative and lead, rather than just wait.”

The Hong Kong government is pulling out all the stops to get people vaccinated in the city. On Wednesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said they were considering moves to increase vaccinations, such as exempting those who take the jab from certain travel restrictions and social-distancing rules.

Pure’s CEO Colin Grant said a quarter of his staff have already been vaccinated. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Seven people have died, all of them chronically ill, after they took the China-made Sinovac vaccine. Instances of elderly people and those with pre-existing medical conditions dying after being vaccinated has become commonplace across the world, although heavily reported in the news, which has whipped up fears over vaccinations.

So far more than a quarter of a million Hongkongers have been vaccinated and the government recently lowered the age threshold to 30 for those who want to get the jab. Grant was part of a press conference that took place on Thursday afternoon at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council building in which representatives from five local fitness coalitions, along with two council members, Shiu Ka-fai and Kwok Wai-keung, attended and urged the fitness industry to get the jab.

Colin Grant, in blue, at a press conference today organised by the fitness industry in which they are asking members of the industry to get vaccinated. Photo: Patrick Blennerhassett

Grant said the multiple shutdowns, some of which Pure did proactively after reporting cases, has meant Pure’s locations have been closed for about 50 per cent of the time since the outbreak began early in 2020. He said this has had a massive impact on his business, his employees, and those who go to the gym or do yoga at their locations.

“We’re not a business that is designed to be closed, we’re in health and wellness industry and all of us do this because we love it and we’re very passionate about it. And we can’t do that when we are closed, we have rents to pay and staff to pay and when we are closed we have no income.”

Hong Kong’s fitness industry has found itself in the crosshairs of public scrutiny after the Centre for Health Protection tied the recent cluster to Ursus Fitness in Sai Ying Pun. University of Hong Kong microbiologist Dr Ho Pak-leung, in linking the outbreak to Ursus Fitness, called the event a “super-spreader”, and that “it could be repeating the case in the dancing cluster again”.

However only 122 cases have been tied to the cluster, which is a far cry from the 732 linked to the dance cluster late last year. As of Thursday, eight days into the cluster, only eight cases were linked to it, and numbers have been dropping since the third day of the outbreak.

05:27

Hong Kong government suffocating sport and fitness industry to death

University of Hong Kong professor Yuen Kwok-yung, who is one of Hong Kong’s top infectious diseases experts, said the origin of the cluster in Sai Ying Pun was still being investigated and has yet to be determined.

Grant, who co-founded Pure 19 years ago, said he commends the government for the job they have done in containing the spread of the virus so far, and noted the entire world was in the same boat when it came to the coronavirus.

“There is no playbook, no one has a book that is about how you handle a global pandemic like this. And I think for us what we’ve learned is that we’ve got to be very nimble, if cases go up you tighten up, if cases are down, you can relax a bit. I think that has shown to be a successful strategy around the world.”

Grant noted the fitness industry, since being allowed to reopen one month ago, is still trying to recover financially, and many small gyms were forced to close. He is predicting a boom when it comes to working out and getting in shape in the post-pandemic landscape, noting Pure’s nine locations in Shanghai are taking in a record number of customers after reopening last year.

Why can’t Carrie Lam hear death throes of sport and fitness?

“Our belief is that out of Covid, more people are going to want to lead happier and healthier lives, wellness is going to be a major trend … people want this and realise they need this in their lives.”

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