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It would be an interesting game to figure out how to do shopping in a minimal number of aisles, with arrows. Unless everything you want is on the aisles going the same way, you should be fine.

I didn’t particularly care one way or another, but the arrows worked really well, having everybody walking the same way meant I didn’t have to walk by anybody in the store, and I am convinced that people with the virus would go shopping to make sure they had food before they went to get tested.

If you don’t think that walking past people was a problem, then yes, the arrows didn’t help. And if didn’t help if people walked the wrong way. But they definitely allowed everybody to maintain a 6-foot distance, plus most of the time, you were never breathing TOWARD someone else’s face.

I won’t miss the arrows, but they were a simple thing, and it cracked me up how stupid people couldn’t follow simple directions.

I argue that the government needs to treat us like adults, but watching idiots who couldn’t figure out an arrow in the supermarket, I had to wonder if we were capable of being adults.

If you don’t think that walking past people was a problem, then yes, the arrows didn’t help.

You cannot avoid walking past people. Let's assume that everyone is following the arrows as intended. My wife has her list, and she knows where everything is. She goes through the aisles in order.

In aisle two, there is a Hispanic family with four kids in tow (which is fine with us, if mom can handle them and grandma for shopping). They are perusing the cereal section and have not decided which one to take. My wife needs to "play through" as it were.

In aisle 4, there is the old couple shopping together. One is in a scooter. The other is creakily hunched over on the other side of the aisle, reading all the labels, making sure the two of them make the best decision.

Aisle 7 has a young guy, his cart half full on the opposite side of the aisle (again) and he happens to have it positioned in front of the items that my wife needs to get to.

In short, these are nearly immovable obstacles that don't take hints or anticipate competing traffic (my Canadian wife is subtle, the people in the sample don't respond to a pause and a mild stare waiting for them to move). Regardless of direction, they have to be maneuvered around or through.