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BEST SELLING PRODUCTS
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Hi! So, we have been open now since July 6th and steadily rebuilding our team. The first couple of weeks felt pretty stressful. We have a whole list of new safety protocols and cleaning procedures to practice. What once felt routine and easy (all the things that happen before and after your massage) has took a while to adjust to, but is now the new normal. It feels good to be able to share some good COVID-19 massage news. Whew!
Our track record over the past 4 months is now over 1,500 appointments since reopening with zero issues of covid transmission. Therefore, I feel that I can comfortably say that massage therapy is a safe activity with our safety protocols securely in place. Thank you to all NYC’ers for taking masks and social distancing seriously! All of our hard work is what’s allowing businesses to stay open and for us specifically to be able to offer medical massage in New York.
With the recent uptick in cases in NYC, we are re-instituting mandatory PCR covid testing for our therapists. Since we reopened, I myself have had 7 tests, all were negative. As long as testing is readily available, therapists will test every two weeks even though it’s not required by NYS. You can view the therapists’ test results here.
We’ve had months of practicing our new massage safety measures and things are running smoothly. So, we have moved ahead from our “soft” reopening to our “stage 2” reopening. This means we are starting to bring more therapists back to work. And using all of our treatment rooms. And soon, bringing the front desk back to the office.
Part of our confidence stems from knowing that it’s not just our studio that has stayed covid-19 free. I’ve spoken with numerous other studio owners both in NYC, and in upstate NY. Thankfully, I haven’t heard about anyone running into problems with covid. That means that hundreds of therapists have been working on thousands of clients with no issues or infections.
So, if massage therapy was going to be a source of transmissions, we’d have heard something by now. We haven’t, which is great COVID-19 massage news!
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for transmissions to happen. A particular therapist in NYS (not at our studio!) could get lax with safety or be skirting the guidelines. Or a particular therapist could get lax with precautions outside of work and get the virus. But if massage therapy in general under the new guidelines was creating viral spread we would have heard about it by now from contact tracing programs. It’s wonderful to be able to say that medical massage in Midtown and Fidi at our studios is safe!
A lot of the changes we have made have been more on our side, including following CDC cleaning guidelines, setting up hand sanitizer stations, changing how we were storing linens, etc. Most of those are happening behind the scenes and don’t really change how you, as clients, experience getting a massage. We want to be transparent about them so that you can trust that we are keeping our studios clean. But in terms of what you actually “need to know” there are only really a few main changes.
We are still cautioning folks in high risk groups to evaluate their individual situation before booking (over 65 or with comorbidities such as diabetes or high blood pressure). Now that we know we can practice safely we are starting to see more clients in high risk groups. You may want to take a private car rather than use public transport. We also recommend booking our earliest time slots so as to avoid other clients as much as possible. However, those of you in particularly high risk (over 80 with one or more comorbidities) may want to wait until vaccines become available and distributed.
With the more recent uptick in cases in NYC and nationwide, it is possible that we will experience some sort of full or limited shutdown again within the next few months. One new and great piece of news is that NYS has updated their essential health care business classifications to include “medically necessary massage therapy!” This is a new level for massage therapy as we were not classified as essential during the spring/summer shutdown. This means that we will continue being able to provide pain relief massage therapy in the event of another shutdown. We will keep everyone posted about this and the particulars of what will constitute “medically necessary” as we gain more detail from NYS.
And of course, as changes happen we will keep everyone informed as we learn things. For now, I think we can all breath a big sigh of relief that it’s safe to get a massage! With some small changes to our routines, we can get back to some semblance of normalcy. Given how stressful this crisis has been and continues to be, I’m thrilled that we can still provide medical massage for stress and pain relief to all of you. And to be able to share some actual good COVID-19 massage therapy news!
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Good Information. Thanks for sharing
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