"I did not sign up for the military. I signed up for Walmart."
“I did not sign up for the military. I signed up for Walmart.”
What grocery store workers say they’re facing during the pandemic.
By Anna North Apr 23, 2020, 7:40am EDT
A few weeks ago, Evelyn Hall asked her manager at Walmart why the store wasn’t giving workers gloves and masks.
The manager’s response, according to Hall: “Wash your hands every 15 minutes, so you don’t need a glove or a mask.”
“She just walked away from me and started laughing, like it was funny,” Hall said.
The lack of protective equipment wasn’t the only reason Hall, a Walmart employee for 28 years, felt unsafe at her Maryland store. The store also wasn’t counting customers to maintain social distancing and prevent crowding, she said. And she’d also heard from other employees that workers at her store had contracted Covid-19 — but management had never informed other employees or closed the store.
Hall is 68 years old with diabetes and high blood pressure, conditions that put her at high risk of severe illness from Covid. With so few protections in place, she felt Walmart was putting her life on the line.
“I did not sign up for the military,” she says she told her manager. “I signed up for Walmart.”
She is far from alone. Grocery workers around the country say that despite their position on the front lines of the pandemic, stores have been slow to implement policies that would keep them safe. And the toll of the virus on the people who help feed America has already been devastating: As of April 18, at least 18 Walmart employees had died, and 10 percent of the company’s workforce was on leave, according to the Wall Street Journal. Workers have died at Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Kroger stores around the country as well.
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https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21229942/coronavirus-grocery-store-workers-walmart-covid-pandemic
= new reply since forum marked as read
but then those damned right-wing protesters/legislators will be screaming about THAT. "Personal FREEDUMB!"
FL has deemed them "essential" 
so they are all open. People are going to them to visit and congregate and just walk the aisles and lots don't wear masks. Some Walmarts regulate their areas, with limited people allowed in, red tape everywhere, and the ee all have masks and gloves. Others, are just pure open with no restrictions - seems to be manager discretion? I'd love to go to Target for example, and just look at their adoptable kittens, but there are too many idiot trumpers so I just go to Publix when necessary. They put up plastic shields for the cashiers and their folks are wearing masks and they have one way aisles (though some idiots don't observe these). There's a person who disinfects every cart that comes in as well, so overall with my mask on I feel ok there, but still don''t dither, just go in, get whatever and get out. No stopping and talking with others about the veggies now, no searching for the perfect cantaloupe, just get one and get out of there as quickly as possible.
By far most people will be fine, of course. I know you're hanging on to that. Even hiding at home with my close-to-80 husband, I've felt a need to calm and comfort myself with statistics after reading some scary new findings, so I can at least somewhat imagine.
Like depression folk who saved rubber bands and foil the rest of their lives, not because they had to or were traumatized but they'd come to believe in it.
