COVID - general discussion - Temp Locked
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Most of our supermarkets are still monitoring and restricting numbers. Asda, Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons, and M&S have staff at the doors, Aldi have a traffic light system. Our local Lidl is quite small and not too busy at present, but they do not have anyone at the door.
There were quite long queues before Christmas, much quieter now and at all staff and at least 95% of customers are wearing masks.
Mainly only one of us will go in, but sometimes I also need to go in to decide on something. OH said she did not see many couples with children, but a few Mums with children. Many nurseries up here are also closed, so if Dad is working they would have no choice.
DD works from home and SIL is a teacher so they have been allowed a full time essential worker nursery place for Callum, but only till she goes on maternity leave at the end of this month.
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I went into our food only M&S this morning rather than the farm shop, as I virtually pass it on my way to local estate for the dogs off lead run. Farm shop is opposite direction.
As usual they count you in and out and I had seen a queue before Christmas. They clean the baskets and have the stuff for you to do your own trolley, so I feel as safe as I can be. Also today signed up to scan as you go, less handling of items, used for years in other supermarkets but great now! Only down side I left my bananas on the scales after weighing them to pay 🙁.
I collected a waterproof coat ordered on 5 December from local saddlery yesterday. They are open for essential horse items food and bedding other items can be ordered online apparently and collected. No trying on but I can return until end of February, possibly extended if lockdown doesn't lift. I was delighted to see the whole shop floor cordoned off saying they were not allowed to offer non essential items, but coal and logs were on the essential side. I was delighted to see this and staff said it was to save their jobs in case they were caught trading outside the guidelines. It's not part of a chain, probably make a decent profit but if they can do it why cant the big shops. If I wanted to be cynical I'd question how many shops are selling long shelf life food items so they can open with impunity 🤔
Our John Lewis does click and collect but no one enters the store from what I've seen as I've walked that way.
I was surprised when the November restrictions started that our in town M&S are selling clothing from the ground floor, same floor as food 😉, they've moved the collection point downstairs and some clothing has been swapped from upstairs. In some ways I don't blame them as Tesco's and Sainsbury's were doing it from the start.
We can only do our best to follow guidance and limit our outings to try to remain safe.
Edit I've not visited large supermarkets since the first lockdown as friends shopped for us until we managed to secure regular deliveries.
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Re garden centres it's a difficult one, we tend to use smaller nursery type places but some are offering a retail experience that offers a "trip" out for some. We do that ourselves in normal times but at present I'm ordering on line and my garden vouchers will have to wait till later.
Keen gardeners are planning ahead and stocking up just now.
As light relief I'll post these Larry cartoons..
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"I was delighted to see the whole shop floor cordoned off saying they were not allowed to offer non essential items, but coal and logs were on the essential side."
Hi Bakers, One of the problems, and there are very many, is that certain words and phrases get used incorrectly or out of context and one of the worst examples is the use of the word 'essential'.
There is no restriction on what you can buy-if the shop sells it you can buy it-it does not have to be 'essential' so it seems that they are, whilst no doubt feeling they are doing the right thing, needlessly losing potential sales.
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yes, I did chuckle at it called exercise. No offense to any that practice that sport of course
I'm trying to find any advice on cycling on how far you can go. All it says is local area. Most forums/publications/cycling magazines say about within 6 miles from home. But as one cyclist said that could mean a circular trip of about 36 miles plus 12 getting to the circle and back, and of course nothing to stop you going round as many times as you like?
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While we have not needed to buy any clothes for ourselves, I can see that some clothing could be considered "essential".
OH was in Tesco just after Christmas and purchased underpants for Callum. He is toilet training at the moment, and while he seems to have got the idea about emptying his "pee tank", and will now say when he needs to do so, the poo side of things is not going at all well.
If he has a poo accident at nursery, the soiled pants are binned, so the lad was starting to run out of pants!
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This “lockdown” seems a bit of a joke , loads of people out roaming the shops , so you can’t go in a clothing shop to buy a jumper ,but I can go in to a supermarket and buy one !
If there is to be a lockdown ( which I think there should be ) then let’s have a proper one and people should stay at home and not find excuses to circumnavigate the rules , the police should be able to do more to get people to stay at home !
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The following post was made by member Ronhub, who had this this post locked by a Mod and asked by the Mod to repost here. He has requested that the Mod do this but I have done it for him. These are not necessarily my views but I do have a great deal of empathy with the sentiments.
Today, I did my weekly early-morning shop at my local supermarket and had a confrontation with two men who were not wearing masks. I politely asked them to put one on and received verbal abuse in return. This is not the first time this has happened, though not at this shop. Several members of staff positioned themselves between myself, another shopper who had joined in, and the two men, who were served as quickly as possible and ushered off the premises. I am very confident that neither of them would have any sort of exemption.
A senior member of staff informed me that they had been instructed not to confront maskless shoppers, nor to refuse them entry or serve them.The news on COVID-19 infections is dire just at the moment and the situation is obviously getting steadily worse. The law about face coverings is clear and it is a criminal offence not to wear one in a shop. In addition, ‘premises where face coverings are required should take reasonable steps to promote compliance with the law’.
Surely the supermarket has a duty of care to its staff and customers to enforce this law? Is instructing staff to do virtually nothing taking reasonable steps? Is is beyond the capability of the supermarket to identify these people using CCTV, credit card details or car registrations, and pass their details onto the police? Contrast this situation to the two women who were fined for going a walk last week.
Three of my immediate family are NHS frontline workers and their experiences are horrendous, although I don’t think they tell us the half of it. I feel compelled to confront these idiots on my family’s behalf and on behalf of other NHS workers.
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If we wish to grow fruit and vegetables in our gardens this year we need these to be accessible via garden centres, in addition/rather than supermarkets/B&Q and other multiples - see Husky's post re jumpers above.
One of our local garden centres was advertising fireworks and reduced Christmas decorations before Christmas. I'm not sure I'll continue to support them despite being local and family owned. Difficult as they obviously have invested and need income.
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Amidst all the tragedies of the past year, this is possibly the saddest story of all -
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Re Ronhub's experience with shoppers not wearing masks.
I think RH's experience voices eloquently a reason shops cannot enforce the law. Employers certainly have a duty of care to their staff and customers and, if any were injured when challenging unmasked customers, there would be court cases a plenty. This doesn't excuse the law breakers but I think shows how unworkable the situation is.
It was made clear by the Govt from the start that shopkeepers would not be expected to police the law. Promoting compliance is what many already do but if people choose to do otherwise, it needs a police officer to deal with the situation.
(Good move, WN, in copying RH's post here.)
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The main supermarkets we have Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi all have traffic light system at the doors, so no staff maning it now. The M&S food hall shop has a man on the door there are always queues there. Before Christmas they put up a marquee type cover for them to queue in.
The majority of shoppers and staff do wear masks or face shields. We have seen some families still shopping together. All shops have sanitisers for hands and trolleys. Haven't been in many small shops as I can't be bothered to queue.
The FM said the other day that they were looking at tightening the lockdown and was considering stopping some of the click and collect services, though not the food ones. It was also hinted that some of the take aways could be stopped.
Considering the time of year and the freezing weather we have had you would think folk would be quite happy to stay at home.
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I am sure there are, and we too usually shop for non food items on line or using click and collect.
However, on this occasion OH was there for food items anyway, and in this case, as the children's clothes department is right at the front of the store, no extra supermarket paces were required to pick up the pack while walking through to the food area.
Having bought a pack a couple of months back, she knew exactly where to find them.
We have had one home delivery of food, and 2 click and collect, all before summer. The only shop we could get slots with was Waitrose. The spend required there, for both delivery and click and collect, and their rather higher prices, means that we only shop there very occasionally even in normal times.
As there are only the 2 of us to cater for, we also found it difficult to deal with so much food at one time, and OH much prefers to choose her own items, so we shop once a week at one of our local supermarkets, the closest of which is Tesco, and any top ups of things like milk we get at the small Lidl store close to our home.
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I agree with Ronhub that stores could do more to enforce the law re mask wearing in their premises. They manage to employ security to enforce the law on shoplifting so why not to enforce the law re mask wearing. It may need the law to change to carry it out, but I don't see that as being a big problem.
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"Wanted. Security staff for xyz supermarkets. Must be prepared to tackle aggressive people refusing to wear masks in shops".
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Police arrest 12 at Clapham Common anti-lockdown protest
These are the people the police and the courts should be heavy handed on, not walkers a few miles from home in Derbyshire.
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well except there are medical excuses?
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Not sure I would agree. You are then treating those people differently because of a medical condition. And it is not always possible to arrange a click and collect. I was just responding the blanket no mask no excuses no entry sign that Mikey was proposing.
Personally I am quite happy if there is a genuine excuse not to ware a mask for that person not to wear one. The problem is that some have used the 'exempt card' without one and it is far too easy to get one.
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Some do? but it was the same at our local hospital when i last attended ,all the appontment letter have a reminder about wearing masks ,but while i was in the entrance seating area ,there were quite a few who "forgot theirs?" but why bother when the NHS staff will give them one ,i did not see one patient within the hospital without wearing one?
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