Covid-19 Impact on grocery stores

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a lot of changes to everyday activities for citizens in the Houston area. Stores have had to update the way customers shop for their safety making a simple trip to the grocery store a lot more complicated than what it used to be, causing lengthy lines to enter a store a common sight.

David Swaine, a shopper in the Houston area has been affected by the inevitable changes.

“I’ve learned to be a little I guess patient, with others, and normally I’m always moving really fast so that's kinda hard to do but I do do it,” Swaine said.

Swaine and other shoppers are adjusting to the policies stores have put in place to ensure shopping is safe for customers and employees. A common policy stores have been practicing is limiting the amount of customers in a building in order to promote social distancing, a measure the federal government imposed that suggests people should be at least six feet away from one another.

But some shoppers think that social distancing and limiting the amount of people in a building is not enough.

Zoey Jones, another shopper, said she was not satisfied with the measures because the virus was airborne, meaning it would linger in the air even if a person was six feet away. She had avoided going outside since the city got quarantined on March 24, but she needed to go to the grocery store.

“My friend’s cousin just died from this stuff so it's really freaking me out,” she said, that was why she decided to go out with a N95 mask and a disinfecting spray in hand.

Jones was not only concerned for her health, she was taking precautions thinking of her closest family members who she lives and interacts with on a daily basis.

“If I get sick my moms gonna get sick and my mom is gonna die from it cause she’s older and my nieces are gonna die from it cause their younger, their immune system is too weak, to us is like the flu so we can fight it off but its a chance we might not fight it off either, thats scary.”

But customers aren’t the only ones who need to worry about their protection when they go out, stores have also put in place measures that would protect their employees who have to interact with many customers everyday. They have added a protective glass to separate customers and cashiers. Cashiers are also wearing gloves to avoid getting any germs that can be transmitted through money and other products.

Since the pandemic began weeks ago many citizens began panic shopping and left stores with little inventory. To recover stores have had to limit the amount of items each customer can take to ensure they have enough goods for everyone.

Something David Swaine called “absurd,” and is hoping to see it end soon.