Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

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SamSpade
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Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

Post by SamSpade »

This week the Ammon, Idaho Walmart supercenter shut down at 2 pm on a Wednesday and did not reopen until 7 am Friday morning. A third party company was doing "deep cleaning."

Ammon Walmart closes for sanitizing

To me, it sounds like store employees had an outbreak of COVID-19 across multiple departments and the corporation felt like they had to do this, despite being at the peak of the holiday season. (Walmart has an additional location about 5 miles westward in an Idaho Falls neighborhood)

As far as I know, Idaho does not require reporting of large business outbreaks like some states.
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Re: Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

Post by storewanderer »

Given the de facto authority on the virus, the media, has been promoting an agenda that surface contamination, etc. is not such a concern for COVID (is that true or are they just saying that as a way to calm people down and not have to be as diligent about cleaning things?- just like they told us before we didn't need masks then flipped on that), I am curious about the logic that made the decision to close the store for two days and do that deep of a cleaning of the place. It is almost like they went in there and sprayed some heavy duty disinfecting spray in the building and needed to leave it empty for an extended time period after spraying the stuff.

Whatever the reasons, it was clearly a necessary decision to close the store. I have heard of stores closing for a day or so to do a cleaning and clear the air, but this is basically a two day cleaning so that is unusual.

I don't think we have seen any other examples of Wal Mart closing a store for two evenings as a result of a COVID outbreak in the store.

I have seen Save Mart and Rite Aid both close stores for a day or so after a number of employees test positive. Also Dick's, Michaels...
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Re: Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

Post by babs »

The Walmart at Eastport Plaza in Portland was closed for several days due to COVID.. https://www.koin.com/news/health/corona ... plaza/amp/
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Re: Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: December 11th, 2020, 10:42 pm The Walmart at Eastport Plaza in Portland was closed for several days due to COVID.. https://www.koin.com/news/health/corona ... plaza/amp/
This is interesting, so it must be standard procedure after they get a certain number of cases in a store. I really wonder what they are doing inside the store during the period it is closed.

I know of a number of other retailers in my area who have had cases, in some cases multiple cases, and they haven't closed the stores at all for any amount of time... given the surface contamination thing is supposedly debunked, it would appear that they do not need to shut down and do deep cleaning as long as they remove the infected employees and any other employees exposed to the infected employees from the facility. However, as a precaution, I certainly feel better to hear they are doing deep cleaning- it can only help- it can't hurt.
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Re: Walmart and (what allegedly reads like an) outbreaks

Post by Alpha8472 »

I have friends who work for Walmart. When someone shows a fever of even 99 degrees at the employee door screening, they are told to get out. They are told to get tested immediately and stay home. Someone from the corporate office calls them and interrogates them or contact traces them. One friend was sick and had to stay home from work at Walmart for over a week. Luckily she tested negative. She did not hear of any positive tests at her store and there have been no closures of her store. When she was staying at home, a district manager went through the store and interrogated every coworker who had possible contact with her. They appear to be taking it very seriously. Or at least they appear to be. I think that they are trying to be extra safe as any infections could lead to a store closure and that would hurt Walmart's profits. Or at least frighten customers away. Walmart does not want that to happen.

I did notice that Walmart has huge new air conditioning units on top of their store where she works. Hopefully these are new units with the new air filters that can filter out COVID. The air flow in the store is really good now. It is windy inside and you hear the air conditioning blowing in fresh air constantly. You can really tell the difference. The air and cleaner and free of dust. It used to be you could tell if a store had bad air conditioning. The signs and displays have layer of dust, the air conditioning bad. If the signs and displays are dust free, the air conditioning is really filtering the air.

Lots of money is being made from testing. Kaiser Permanente for example is encouraging people to test like crazy. Kaiser gets tons of money from the tests. They want their customers to test often. This COVID testing is a big money maker. The government is paying money for every test. It is a huge profit source. I see huge lines at Kaiser drive thru testing sites. They even have free antibody testing. I am going to request a free Kaiser antibody test. If I have antibodies, it will give me so much more peace of mind.
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