Equinox and its subsidiary SoulCycle will require customers and staff to show proof of vaccination if they want access to the gyms and studios beginning next month, it was announced.
The company announced the new policy, which will initially be implemented at its New York City locations, in an email it sent to its members on Monday.
Equinox joins scores of other big-name companies from across the United States that will require their employees to get COVID vaccinations before returning to in-person work.
Facebook and Google last week joined Morgan Stanley and Saks Fifth Avenue in announcing the rules as the Indian 'Delta' variant threatens to derail the economy's reopening.
Equinox said in the email that it conducted a survey of its members and found that 96 percent of them have already been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Equinox and its subsidiary SoulCycle will require customers and staff to show proof of vaccination if they want access to the gyms and studios beginning next month, it was announced. The image above from last year shows the Equinox location on Manhattan's West Side
Instructor Janet Fitzgerald leads a class at SoulCycle is an indoor cycling studio based in New York in this 2011 file photo. SoulCycle operates a majority of its locations in the New York metropolitan area
The company announced the new policy, which will initially be implemented at its New York City locations, in an email it sent to its members on Monday
The survey also found that 89 percent of employees reported being vaccinated.
According to the company, an ‘overwhelming majority’ of its customers want mandatory vaccinations so that they could have peace of mind when entering gyms and riding studios.
'We have a responsibility to take bold action and respond to changing circumstances with urgency,' said Equinox Group Executive Chairman Harvey Spevak.
'We encourage other leading brands to join us in this effort to best protect our communities.'
Equinox made the announcement on the same day New York Governor Andrew Cuomo urged private businesses in the state, including bars, restaurants, and gyms, to require customers to be vaccinated in order to receive service.
Equinox operates more than 100 fitness clubs around the world. Forty of them are located in New York.
Most of the company’s SoulCycle locations are also in the city and surrounding suburbs.
Equinox made the announcement on the same day New York Governor Andrew Cuomo urged private businesses in the state, including bars, restaurants, and gyms, to require customers to be vaccinated in order to receive service
New York State on Saturday reported more than 2,500 cases of the coronavirus - a fourfold increase from a month ago
More than 63 percent of New Yorkers have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
More than 57 percent of state residents have been fully vaccinated, according to state data
New York State on Saturday reported more than 2,500 cases of the coronavirus - a fourfold increase from a month ago.
COVID-19 cases are continuing to rise rapidly throughout the United States as the country enters its fourth wave of the pandemic.
On Sunday, America recorded 25,141 new cases of coronavirus with a seven-day rolling average of 79,951, which is the highest average recorded since February 16.
It also marks a 312 percent increase from the 19,400 average recorded three weeks ago.
Additionally, 71 COVID-19 deaths were recorded on Sunday with a seven-day rolling average of 341, the second day in a row that the 300-threshold has been passed.
The figure is a 45 percent increase from three weeks prior and the largest seen since June 12.
Health officials say deaths have not risen as dramatically because people now are protected by vaccines, but the spread of the Indian 'Delta' variant is causing hospitalizations to spike in several states.
'Private businesses - I am asking them and suggesting to them to go to vaccine-only admission,' Cuomo said on Monday.
'I believe it's in your best business interest.
'If I go to a bar and I want to have a drink and I want to talk to the person next to me, I want to know that that person is vaccinated.'
The surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Indian Delta variant has forced companies that planned to resume in-person business to recalibrate.
Twitter on Wednesday announced it would close its offices in New York and San Francisco after just re-opening them two weeks ago.
Lyft, meanwhile, said it would push its office re-opening all the way out to February.
And compulsory masking could make a re-appearance, too, with California saying it would push for people to be masked indoors regardless of their vaccination status.
Employers saying they will require vaccines include BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lyft and Netflix.
The measures bring much of the country's march back to normal in the wake of more than a year of restrictions to a slowdown as the particularly virulent Delta variant is thought by experts to be a major threat - especially to the unvaccinated.
For months, most employers relied on information campaigns, bonuses and other incentives to encourage their workforces to get the COVID-19 shot.
Now, a growing number are imposing rules to make it more onerous for employees to refuse, from outright mandates to requiring the unvaccinated to undergo regular testing.
Among employers getting tougher are the federal government, the state governments of California and New York, the Walt Disney Co. and the NFL.
Some hospitals, universities, restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues have also started requiring vaccines.
But the new measures are unlikely to affect many of the millions of unvaccinated Americans.
Many of the companies that are requiring shots have mostly office workers who are already largely vaccinated and are reluctant to work alongside those who aren't.
In contrast, major companies that rely on
