Good solution. My gym (a Y) did the same thing but a lot of people are getting sick of it. I wear a small silk bandanna (under my nose) and then drop it immediately after getting in the door. Nobody has said anything yet. But picking up a weight is a great idea.
Today at a class, the instructor, a nice, thirty something woman said that the thing she misses most is not being able to touch people. She likes to pat people on the back if they’ve done well, touch them on the shoulder to say hello, touch them to correct their position, etc. She almost looked like she was going to cry when she said this (she was apologizing for having touched somebody she hadn’t seen for awhile).
This is so destructive to us and it’s ruining our lives.
There is more to life than this deadly sterility.