Coronavirus Fears and Empty Supermarkets

[storewanderer]

Still not noticing much of a difference in Nevada. Hardly anyone even has the flu anymore after a few weeks of 60 degree temperatures, it is like winter got cancelled. Again I am not in casinos much and wonder if they are being impacted, suspect they are. I do notice the ads out of the CA grocers the past few weeks (Raleys and Safeway specifically) have been really really good; a lot of lower retails than usual and heavy number of specials. Save Mart also seems to be running aggressive ads but never the items I want at a price below what I can get elsewhere.

[Alpha8472]

I work in a pharmacy in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have seen an insane number of sick people in the past few weeks. Many asian people have been coming in asking for masks, and the pharmacy has none. It is all sold out. Many have come in who speak only Chinese. They show their phone translation for one word, "mask." I have been coughed on all day.

Some days I just do not want to come in to work.

One county north of me is Solano County where the first case of unknown origin coronavirus appeared. It is airborne now. The same county houses Travis Air Force Base where the coronavirus cruise ship passengers are quarantined.

Supermarkets are seeing a slowdown in luxury shopping. People are not spending as much time hanging around. They grab what they need and flee for fear of catching something. Pharmacies are seeing an increase in customers asking for cold and flu recommendations. Now everyone wants a prescription for Tamiflu or antibiotics. Also there is a crazy number of people coming in for vaccinations. There is a vaccination against pneumonia, which could occur at the same as the flu or colds.

[storewanderer]

I work in a pharmacy in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have seen an insane number of sick people in the past few weeks. Many asian people have been coming in asking for masks, and the pharmacy has none. It is all sold out. Many have come in who speak only Chinese. They show their phone translation for one word, "mask." I have been coughed on all day.

Some days I just do not want to come in to work.

One county north of me is Solano County where the first case of unknown origin coronavirus appeared. It is airborne now. The same county houses Travis Air Force Base where the coronavirus cruise ship passengers are quarantined.

Supermarkets are seeing a slowdown in luxury shopping. People are not spending as much time hanging around. They grab what they need and flee for fear of catching something. Pharmacies are seeing an increase in customers asking for cold and flu recommendations. Now everyone wants a prescription for Tamiflu or antibiotics. Also there is a crazy number of people coming in for vaccinations. There is a vaccination against pneumonia, which could occur at the same as the flu or colds.

This is very bad. Up here in Nevada I notice most supermarkets I have been to yesterday and today are sold out of hand sanitizer, also paper products and canned meat are in short supply. At Wal Mart the entire Spam shelf was empty, though there was a full endcap of the stuff a couple aisles away that the hoarders must not have known about.

And I do not understand why these people who are sick seem to project their sickness off on innocent bystanders. Maybe they are feeling too lousy to think about it.

For instance in my workplace last week a person was sick. One of dozens. This person the first day kept saying they had allergies (awful cough), the next day kept saying it then decided to leave early and seek doctor, then did not go in the next day, but was back on day 4 coughing everywhere again, not covering their mouth, and walking around telling people they wanted to "die" as they seemed to literally be trying to spread their cough everywhere, looking straight ahead as they coughed not even looking down let alone trying to cover their cough up. I have had similar experiences on airplanes with coughing people who seem to want to be everyone's best friend.

I was also in a grocery store up at Tahoe and as this was in CA and a person was coughing all over everything including their filthy nasty reusable bag, covering their mouth but still touching everything (cart, self checkout, reusable bag, etc.), looking at items then putting back, etc. Then for some reason they kept their reusable bag in the cart while scanning items then when they were all done at that point after paying took their bag and put it on the self checkout and bagged their items. Probably due to how the self checkout locks up when you put a reusable bag on it at the beginning of the transaction. This reusable bag thing is a real germ spreading situation. That germ filled bag goes on the checkout and cart that other people's food goes on. Then the person's cough-filled items since they touched them all sit on the counter before being bagged (rather than if they went straight from cart into a single use bag, the cough filled items would not actually touch the counter).

[cw06]

The management culture of grocery stores isn't going to help in any capacity.

A lot of hourly employees don't health insurance or sick time. Those who do are guilted when they try to call out. Salaried managers will have their jobs threatened if they take too much sick time. I've worked for several who would come in with the full blown flu.

A lot of grocery employees are going to "power through" a "cold" while handling food, and spread coronavirus to the whole neighborhood.

[storewanderer]

The management culture of grocery stores isn't going to help in any capacity.

A lot of hourly employees don't health insurance or sick time. Those who do are guilted when they try to call out. Salaried managers will have their jobs threatened if they take too much sick time. I've worked for several who would come in with the full blown flu.

A lot of grocery employees are going to "power through" a "cold" while handling food, and spread coronavirus to the whole neighborhood.

It is tough with grocery stores with how tight labor is, and how short staffed stores are in general. This is where when you have a well staffed store (like a Hy Vee where there are 20 or 25 employees on duty in deli/food service on a given day) vs. a short staffed typical chain supermarket on the west coast at least (where there are 2 or 3 employees on duty in deli/food service on given day), it is really hard to be down a person.

Not a great situation.

[Alpha8472]

The difference between the flu and coronavirus is that there are drugs to treat the flu such as Tamiflu or Xoflyza and flu vaccines are available. Coronavirus has no proven medications and the possibility of a vaccine is uncertain and far away. This is a new disease and humans do not have any immunity to it. A 34 year old healthy doctor died of the disease. This can strike and kill the healthy at random. Coronavirus is not a simple case of the flu. Patients suffer lung lesions and have to be put on ventilators because they are suffocating to death. It is a horrible death. Some patients do not show any symptoms for weeks and still pass it on. There are even patients that recover and then test positive again after recovering. The randomness is creating uncertainty and fear.

Customers are frightened and they are now hiding at home as much as possible. Impulse buying is down. This could lead to lowered sales, recession, and layoffs. Fear and uncertainty has consequences for the entire economy.

The supermarkets need to realize that employees need to stay at home when sick. You cannot put profit over safety when lives are at stake. Sick employees must be sent home without fear of job loss. Companies need to have some kind of special case for coronavirus in regards to time off to recover with pay.

Supermarkets need to bring in more janitors and cleaning crews. Some supermarkets have eliminated janitors. Now is not the time to try to cut costs on janitor salaries. There should be full time janitors disinfecting everything constantly. Customers need to be reassured that everything is being cleaned and disinfected. This is where the disease is most likely spread. There should be disinfecting wipes restocked and in ample supply at the front doors at all times.

It may not look appealing to the corporate office, but employees should be required to wear masks. Customers will understand that masks are necessary now. Many customers will appreciate employees wearing masks. Masks are not primarily to protect the wearer, it is to protect the customer from having food or merchandise from being contaminated by sick employees.

[mbz321]

I work at a Costco that opened in 2011....we had our busiest sales day ever in the history of our store on Saturday...it was absolutely insane to put it mildly. (Sunday was slightly calmer, but not by much). It was also the last weekend of the monthly sale that was happening, and people were getting their rebate checks from the Citi card to spend on top of it all. By Sunday, we were out of disinfecting wipes and a lot of the dry/canned food aisles were picked over. I'm on the East Coast though so people didn't go quite so nuts loading up with paper goods and water like I saw elsewhere.

[Brian Lutz]

The management culture of grocery stores isn't going to help in any capacity.

A lot of hourly employees don't health insurance or sick time. Those who do are guilted when they try to call out. Salaried managers will have their jobs threatened if they take too much sick time. I've worked for several who would come in with the full blown flu.

A lot of grocery employees are going to "power through" a "cold" while handling food, and spread coronavirus to the whole neighborhood.

If I recall correctly both Safeway/Albertsons and Kroger stores (at least in the Northwest) have union (UFCW 21) employees, shouldn't the union be pushing for this? Also, the State of Washington has a law that went into effect in 2018 that makes it mandatory for all employers to provide at least 1 hour of sick leave per 40 hours worked; The City of Seattle has had mandatory sick leave in place since 2012, and has stricter requirements for larger employers. This means that all employees should have at least some amount of sick leave available, although it may not be enough to cover more than a few days of illness.

[BillyGr]

I was also in a grocery store up at Tahoe and as this was in CA and a person was coughing all over everything including their filthy nasty reusable bag, covering their mouth but still touching everything (cart, self checkout, reusable bag, etc.), looking at items then putting back, etc. Then for some reason they kept their reusable bag in the cart while scanning items then when they were all done at that point after paying took their bag and put it on the self checkout and bagged their items. Probably due to how the self checkout locks up when you put a reusable bag on it at the beginning of the transaction. This reusable bag thing is a real germ spreading situation. That germ filled bag goes on the checkout and cart that other people's food goes on. Then the person's cough-filled items since they touched them all sit on the counter before being bagged (rather than if they went straight from cart into a single use bag, the cough filled items would not actually touch the counter).

Not sure why those self checkouts are an issue with the bags - we just started the no plastic bags here in NY yesterday, and the self checkouts had a button on screen to hit for using your own bags (was probably there before, just never looked for it). Once you did that, it cam up and said place your bags on the scale and then touch the OK on screen, which I'd suspect then recalibrates the scale to include the weight of the bag(s), as I remember the employees having to do the same in the past when refilling the plastic ones.

In general (aside from someone being sick) the bags shouldn't be such an issue with minor exceptions (like having meat that leaks into one) - after all, most everything else you buy is already in a sealed package (or can be placed in a bag such as produce, even in areas where bags are banned at checkout), so whatever may or may not be on the bag is only getting on the outside of packages, not onto the food itself.

Also, one thing to remember (in a general sense) is that not every person who is coughing is going to be sick. People can have an issue where simply having their throat get dry will make them cough (think of how people often keep a cup of water when making speeches or singing), so don't automatically assume that someone coughing is dangerous to others.

[Alpha8472]

There seems to be widespread panic buying at Costco. People want to buy in bulk in case they need to hide at home for months.

Do you really need jumbo sized packs of toilet paper and bottled water?

Other stores are sold out of similar items, but it is Costco where all the people want to buy in bulk.