South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike

"Free Democracies" are passing the weirdest restrictions. It's mind boggling just how much power our governments are allowed to wield. I'm not even a libertarian and I think this is government overreach. So you're going to allow people to work out in gyms, but playing music that's too fast is somehow too dangerous to allow? Come on. If it was a real problem you'd just close the gyms again.

South Korean here and I just wanted to add some thoughts. The real reasoning for the ridiculous ban is because they&#x27;ve been shutting down the gyms whenever the numbers spike but can&#x27;t anymore because the business owners are in a desperate state because of the prolonged shutdowns. So it&#x27;s their way of saying please don&#x27;t to the gyms while avoiding a total outlash from the gym owners.<p>Obviously how well we&#x27;re managing the pandemic while protecting civil liberty and privacy is a hot political discussion. We managed to keep things mostly under control and prevented total medical system collapse and kept the mortality rate low, while on the other side we didn&#x27;t put nearly as enough resources into securing the vaccines so we&#x27;re paying the price now.

I&#x27;m glad we are finally at a point where that skepticism around strict covid policies, such as in this thread, can be expressed without being immediately attacked. Questioning anything 6 months ago would have gotten you shut down or banned, depending on the forum.

South Korea has had 2044 deaths, out of 51.7 million people. That&#x27;s a death rate surely under the usual &quot;flu and pneumonia&quot; rate.<p>I don&#x27;t understand, I really don&#x27;t. I anybody can explain, I&#x27;d very much appreciate.

&quot;No, the BPM is actually really low, it was written using demi-semi-hemi-demi-semiquavers&quot;

Excuse me while I quickly remix every top-40 120+bpm track to 119.

The actual title of the article:<p>Say goodbye to Gangnam Style, treadmill running for next 2 weeks: Some Level 4 distancing rules being called ‘illogical, nonsensical’<p>&quot;Under Level 4 rules, taking showers within fitness club premises is prohibited and only a limited number of users are allowed in each area at a time.<p>At the same time, the running speed on treadmills is capped at 6 kilometers per hour. Music played at group exercise classes at fitness clubs cannot exceed 120 beats per minute.&quot;

I was curious what the vaccination rate was in South Korea, and was surprised to see that their first-vaccination rate was below 30% just two weeks ago [1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newsinfo.inquirer.net&#x2F;1451900&#x2F;south-korea-vaccination-rate-nears-30-amid-delta-variant-concerns" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newsinfo.inquirer.net&#x2F;1451900&#x2F;south-korea-vaccinatio...</a>

They are limiting pretty much all high-intensity exercise in an attempt to prevent the spread by way of heavy breathing.<p>Sure, the headline sounds ridiculous to my American ears, but I wonder if there is a cultural-specific reason for the music. For example, perhaps synchronized dance is an extremely common exercise class in Korea.

Why gyms have music to begin with? 90% people using their headphones anyway! External music is super annoying if you try to listen to audiobook.

lol... I wonder if they have less crazy laws in North Korea...

costco has removed relish from their hot dog condiment dispensers .. to fight covid<p>I hear california is considering banning birthday cakes with more than 5 candles because the wind to blow them out can spread covid

If this isn’t illustrative of the tradeoff between freedom&#x2F;individual liberties and overbearing government imposed restrictions, I don’t know what is. This particular type of restriction ends up being acceptable to some because they aren’t the ones losing out on a freedom they exercise, while others feel like they’re losing more relative to others - it’s a classic tyranny of the majority. We have a solution for all of this - it is to educate people but let people do what they want. Those who think the risks are too great should constrain their own lives, instead of demanding that everyone else change all of society to create an acceptable risk profile for those who are risk-averse.