Experts say it may be time for grocery stores to ban customers from coming inside

CNN ^ | April 19, 2020 | Nathaniel Meyhersohn, CNN Business

[Stravinsky]

New York (CNN Business) Dozens of grocery store workers have died from the coronavirus, despite masks, temperature checks and capacity restrictions to keep them safe. So far, supermarkets have resisted the most draconian policy: banning customers from coming inside.

However, some worker experts, union leaders and small grocery owners believe it has become too dangerous to let customers browse aisles, coming into close range with workers. Grocery stores are still flooded with customers, and experts say it's time for large chains to go "dark" to the public and convert to curbside pickup and home delivery for food and other essential goods.

"Careless customers" are "probably the biggest threat" to workers right now, according to Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers' union. The union said 85% of its grocery store member workers reported that customers are not practicing social distancing in stores.

"Anything that reduces the need for interaction with the public and allows for greater physical distancing will ultimately better protect grocery workers," said John Logan, professor and director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. "Shuttering stores and repurposing them for pickup and delivery only would be a positive step."

[Zhang Fei]

[Last time I visited a supermarket, two and a half weeks ago, was the only one masked and gloved. The workers were doing their best, sanitizing everything, Marks on floor about distancing. But I still felt sorry for the workers. They had plastic dividers at the checkout. Not one single mask on employees.]

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The innumerate media are piling on the hysteria here. The country has 3m grocery store employees. Perhaps 30 have died so far. That’s 1 in 100,000. The population of the country is 320m, of which 46,000 have died of the virus. That’s 1 in 7,000. Another way of putting this is that grocery store employees are 1/13 as likely to die of the virus as the average American. The reason for this focus is the usual liberal theme of “women and blacks” hit the hardest. Except reality is a lot more complicated.