A girl runs through waves in a swimming pool in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. The Nanjing Meteorology upgraded the orange alert for high temperature to the red warning. Photo: CFP

Swimming pools in Beijing are expected to reopen in late May after three-month shutdown, according to some stores reached by the Global Times on Sunday.

A coach surnamed Qiu from a gym in Chaoyang district, Beijing, told the Global Times that all swimming pools in Beijing are still shut down at present, but are hopeful they'll be allowed to reopen in late May.

A diving coach in Beijing also told the Global Times on the condition of anonymity that the gym he works for is expected to reopen in middle or late May. 

Beijing residents are also eager to go back to swimming pools. 

"After months of staying at home due to the coronavirus, my abdominals have already turned into a beer belly" a resident named Zhao Youting told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Jun Yixiao, another Beijing resident who planned to learn swimming this year, said she finally can take out her swimming gear she bought months ago.

Gyms and swimming pools in Beijing were required to shut down in late January due to the COVID-19 outbreak at the time. 

Although some gyms were allowed to partly reopen with strict epidemic-prevention measures, like reservation systems and limiting the number of visitors, swimming pools, no matter indoor or outdoor, were still banned from reopening according to a document released by the Beijing sports bureau on March 9. 

Some other gym employees reached by the Global Times are not as confident for reopening as the two coaches mentioned above, they said they had to wait for a notice from the sports bureau or the community authorities. 

But it is still safe to say that the industry is approaching the end of the tunnel as China's State Council, or China's Cabinet, released guidelines on May 8 to promote full production resumption in the country.