A star instructor for trendy cycling training brand SoulCycle retires after being criticized for being given the COVID-19 vaccine under the pretense of being a teacher.
On Friday, Stacey Griffith – a top fitness coach in New York City who earns at least $ 800 per class, according to a recent Vox report – shared footage of her trip to Staten Island to get the Moderna vaccine.
“ Now I can teach @SoulCycle with a little more confidence that everything will be fine if we get the [vaccine]Griffith, whose famous clients were Kelly Ripa and Madonna, told her 64,000 followers on Instagram.
It wasn’t long before many of those followers authored the 52-year-old Two turns from scratch for bypassing elderly and at-risk individuals who have yet to be vaccinated.
“Let’s celebrate making the world safe from a personal spin class in the midst of a global pandemic,” read a comment from a woman who said she and her wife, a cancer patient, were months away from qualifying for their own. recordings. “What’s left of any respect I had for Soul and the leaders it celebrates is over.”
Griffith initially defended her choice, telling the Daily Beast that she fell within the New York City Health Department’s 1B qualification as a teacher, including health workers, over-65s, grocery store workers, and teachers – the kind who oversee classrooms and daycares, not training studios.
“All teachers are eligible to apply for the vaccine,” Griffith told the Daily Beast on Friday. “My post today was to show my confidence in the system, in our government, and I hope everyone can at least feel more comfortable knowing I’ve gone through the process!”
She added that she owed it to her community, “in my health and wellness profession as a teacher,” to get vaccinated to help reduce transmission within her classes.
“By having me vaccinated, the short circuit within groups can be stopped!” Griffith told the publication. “I function as a common point for many overlapping people. In my profession of health and wellness as a teacher, my daily priority is to keep my community and their respiratory systems running at full capacity so that they can defeat this virus if infected by it. I can only teach them if I am healthy myself. “
She said the same to a critic on Instagram who questioned her judgment.
“Keeping you all safe is my top priority, the safety of my older riders is my top priority,” she wrote. “I see hundreds of them every week, I think it’s fair to say it was a good decision.”
But the backlash persisted, with critics arguing that the best way to protect the elderly was to keep them from getting ahead of the vaccination line, plagued by long waiting lists, shortages, confusion over online forms and planned hiccups. Voxis Alex Abad-SantosMeanwhile, argued that there were likely few older or risky riders to be found in Griffith’s SoulCycle classes at this point, as they are currently kept out in the cold.
Griffith eventually deleted her message, telling the Everyday beast, ‘I hate controversy. It makes me sad that people get so dark and mean, I’m really just trying to do the right thing and be safe. “
On Monday, Griffith – whose high-profile romance with Milly fashion designer Michelle Smith is known, can be seen in the New York Times – shared a more remorseful message.
“I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my recent action in receiving the vaccine,” she wrote in an Instagram post, with comments disabled. “I made a terrible error of judgment and I am really sorry.”
Her apology follows a statement from SoulCycle clarifying that instructors should not pursue vaccinations based on the fact that they are “ educators. ”
“Stacey Griffith was acting in a personal capacity to apply for a COVID-19 vaccine in upstate NY,” a SoulCycle spokesperson told Yahoo Life. “SoulCycle does not play a role in organizing or obtaining vaccinations for instructors or other employees, nor do we encourage our SoulCycle employees to seek vaccination priority as educators.”
Griffith has not yet responded to Yahoo Life’s request for comment.
For the latest coronavirus news and updates, then follow up https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and people who are immunocompromised are still most at risk. If you have any questions, consult it CDC‘s and WHO resource guides.
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Originally published