So tell me this about grocery store workers - General Discussion Discussion

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78597) 5 years ago

My pal who works in a loading dock is being told to stay at his station and not walk around the building

He has to wear gloves and a mask to unload shipments and then stack the lot by the loading bay door where some other guy comes to pick it up

I bet grocery stores have a similar system now

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[–] Moonglum9 (11340) 5 years ago

They've probably got incredible immune systems from having to handle 8000 people's dirty, germ-covered money every day. Whenever they get exposed to a new illness, their mighty immune response decimates those pathetic microbial invaders.

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[–] ShogunofYonkers (78597) 5 years ago

Microbial Invaders would be a perfect garage band name
I play a mean cowbell, just saying...

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[–] AndyKing1967 (39850) 5 years ago

Needs....more...cowbell...

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[–] ShogunofYonkers (78597) 5 years ago

Love that skit😂

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[–] Moonglum9 (11340) 5 years ago

That's right - Thee Bruce Dickinson!

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[–] SaneMax (240) 5 years ago

SNL got the producer's name wrong. Bruce Dickinson was the producer of the best of CD they bought. Someone else produced the original recording. Actually it doesn't really matter.

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[–] Moonglum9 (11340) 5 years ago

There's really only one Bruce Dickinson that matters anyways, and he sings for Iron Maiden.

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[–] actionkamen (23176) 5 years ago

Probably because they wash their hands out of habit. Money are known to be full of germs even before this coronavirus was a thing, so a cashier or people that handles money often would automatically wash their hands before doing anything else, like eating.

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[–] Keelai (36155) 5 years ago

Cashier in my supermarket was coughing her lungs out. Now she and cashiers around town are wearing masks and gloves. Realistically, plenty of them were likely exposed by customers and then they exposed other customers.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

My grandson is cashiering in a grocery since he can’t teach due to schools being closed. He’s not permitted to wear gloves, but he has a mandatory duty to sanitize his hands after each transaction. I deem the practice is to prevent the transference of the virus from gloved hands to other customers.

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[–] 102000 (6349) 5 years ago

But the primary means of transmission is droplets in the air and you know by now infected people are shopping and probably coughing/sneezing all over the place, yet I still haven't heard of any large outbreaks from grocery store workers - great news but puzzling.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

You’re correct. I questioned why just sanitizers when eventually the hands & cuticles will be drying & splitting which leads to bleeding. Open areas for the virus microbes to enter. Then we have what you wrote. Now they have installed plexiglass between the customers & cashiers his store. Two of the employees have contracted the virus.

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[–] 102000 (6349) 5 years ago

I've heard they are installing plexiglass at our Kroger stores, but I haven't been in for 2 weeks - just using on-line orders for now.

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[–] db20db (17748) 5 years ago

I shopped at my local Kroger's several days ago and filled up my car and two containers for my mower at their fuel center for $1.74/gal. Cheapest gas I've bought in decades.

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[–] 102000 (6349) 5 years ago

Ours is $1.48

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[–] GlenEllyn (21659) 5 years ago

$1.48?!? I wish. I paid $1.75 a gallon a few days ago. As db said, cheapest gas I've bought in ages. And ages.

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[–] db20db (17748) 5 years ago

The patrons at the other nearby pumps seemed to be having nostalgic discussions about the price.

Also, it was a welcome, sunny, actual springlike day after several overcast, wet, chilly and gloomy ones. I caught my first whiff of freshly cut grass when I exited the store, produced by a landscaping crew at a huge apartment complex across from the shopping center.

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[–] GlenEllyn (21659) 5 years ago

Aahh. The simple pleasure of the scent of freshly-cut grass... It'll be a while here before we get that pleasure.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

I noticed tonight it'd gone down, but only to $3.19 😕

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[–] GlenEllyn (21659) 5 years ago

Well, crap! Seems like even California should have dropped to least $2.50 by now.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

You'd think, plus we'd get some sort of break because a lot of oil is from here, but no.

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[–] db20db (17748) 5 years ago

That's absolutely amazing.

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[–] GlenEllyn (21659) 5 years ago

Our local grocery chain is installing plexiglass too, but I haven't been there since they started installing it, so I don't know what it looks like. I'll probably have to go there again in a day or two - running low on milk and butter.

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[–] db20db (17748) 5 years ago

And they also have the $1200 stimulus and tax refunds to look forward to. Great morale booster for these folks https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/coronavirus/kroger-announces-temporary-pay-raise-for-frontline-employees

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

All the workers in my local grocery stores are wearing plastic gloves. I can't believe someone would forbid their workers to wear gloves, that's just plain evil!

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

Well, I found out all it does is pass the microbes on to the next person. In the meantime the cashiers are breathing the cough and sniffle droplets! Gloves aren’t the answer unless they are sanitized after each transaction or changed. Plexiglass needs to be installed.

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

If everyone at the grocery stores wears gloves, then nobody picks anything up!

No, really, ive been wearing cloth gloves to the grocery store and chucking the gloves in the laundry hamper when I get home. Everyone should do the same.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

I was referring to the cashiers passing it on to ungloved hands.

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

If everyone wore gloves at yje grocery store, and used them correctly, then there would be no surface transmission.

As for cashiers passing things on to the ungloved, well better to pass things to one ungloved person than two. The cashiers gave a right to protect themselves, everyone does.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

I agree. Cashiers are some of the most exposed. But, think about how many items are touched in a grocery. How do you figure just one person? There are many transactions involving many hands. Cotton gloves are useless just as basic face masks are. The coughing and sneezing are much more dangerous.

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

When I got home from the grocery store two days ago, I laid out everything packaged on the kitchen linoleum and sprayed it with disinfectant spray. And washed the hell out of the produce. Because yeah, who knows who's coughed what on the cans of soup.

And cotton gloves aren't completely useless, I was thinking of getting some lightweight washable ones for summer.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

I imagine the "disposable" vinyl or latex gloves are washable. Why wouldn't they be? As long as you spray them with disinfectant when you get home or wash them as thorough as you would your hands, and anything you touch with them on such as doorknobs, and areas you touch in your car.

Personally I don't wear gloves. Somewhere in my storage units I've got a bunch of them but who knows exactly where they are. Ditto face masks. I figure as long as I wash my hands well, and take care to disinfect anything I touch and bring in the house, I'm okay.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Not really. If the virus can be spread by touching surfaces surfaces, it'd get on the gloves, but also on the surfaces of everything else we touch, including packages or produce or plastic bags we put the produce in.

Anything that people touch, unless we sanitise all surfaces before bringing them into our households, and that includes petting other people's pets or them petting ours.

I do like the idea of using washable cotton or fabric gloves and then washing them over wastefully using disposable gloves, which should be reserved for those working in hospitals where it's more critical.

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

What I did was wear gloves in the grocery store, and remove them as I got into my car, and remove them so they turned inside out and anything on the exterior wasn't going to contaminate anything before they got chucked in the laundry. That's how healthcare providers remove their plastic gloves, they turn them inside out in removal, so the contaminated exterior surface is inside, and contaminates nothing but the trash.

It's not foolproof, hence spraying everything down when I got home, but it's better than nothing.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

So long as you're also still sanitising the things you've bought, you're as good as we can be.

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[–] Who (5146) 5 years ago

They have cheap or no health plans and don’t have access to tests. Even health care workers can’t get tests unless they are fully symptomatic. It seems like celebrities and politicians are the only ones catching COVID because they are among the elite who can get access to tests.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

That's the truth Ruth

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

Not everyone needs to be tested. Please do your research before posting off the wall replies!

As per the CDC the entity which knows more than you or I do. It pays to locate the facts.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

I respectfully disagree. Everyone does need to be tested. It’s the CDC’s current policy to only test those with symptoms Or a couple other criteria.

If I am correct South Korea is mass testing and they are the model of how to handle this pandemic thus far. Their test have results in hours rather than days also.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

So, you believe all should be tested even though they are asymptomatic? How often do we go? Every day? Every other day? Once a week? Once a month? I don’t have it this week...testing was negative, but I may contract it next week and not be aware. Since I tested negative this week I’m OK and can be around people. I don’t have to shelter in place since I tested negative.

Do you see where I’m going with this? The cost would be enormous just to test people who are asymptomatic. Meanwhile people are dying by the thousands in this country from the flu. In the U.S. alone 80,000 people died from the flu in 2017, the worst in four decades! Do we close down the country for the flu?

I will go along with the CDC and treat it like we’ve always done, be it school or work...have a fever and feel blah...stay home or in this case be tested. But, the tell for this Covid-19 is difficulty breathing.

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

My reasoning is this: you can’t fight something you can’t see. If we only test those with symptoms we are being reactionary. In football terms, I’m not a fan though, you can’t win by only playing defense. You must have offense also. Again, to have a picture of what areas of any given country are actually having outbreaks you would need to do more than test just those with symptoms.

Here’s an article I found:
https://theconversation.com/to-get-on-top-of-the-coronavirus-we-also-need-to-test-people-without-symptoms-134381

I know what your saying about the difficulty of implementing such testing, but if it could be done and in hindsight much earlier, we would have better results.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

You've been able to get a test even though you don't have symptoms? How did you manage that?

I did have the tell-tale difficulty breathing after I contracted the flu somewhere around mid to early February, along with a fever, chills, and a lack of runny nose. But when I contacted the local authorities about it they were disinterested. All they care about, and this only recently, is testing those who currently have symptoms. Which I understand. It's like putting out fires, so those people who are contagious (and I'm very unlikely to be at this point) know and can take appropriate action.

I did exactly that, stayed home, isolated myself, and at the time put it down to simply a seasonal flu and I'd contracted it primarily because my immune system was down due to too much stress.

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[–] kspkap (13629) 5 years ago

Cat, if you were replying to me, no I didn’t have a test. I was giving a scenario in response to Mrmojo.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Ksp, yes, I was. I thought you said you'd had a test.

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[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

That's one big plus from the Prince Charles situation.

Okay, he got tested when he didn't have enough symptoms to meet the official criteria for testing, but tested positive anyway... which proves that the official criteria for testing aren't accurate! Thank you, Charles's Doctor!

Frankly, the biggest thing we can do to slow the spread of the virus is massively expand testing, ideally test absolutely everyone in the world at once, or test everyone who is at risk, or who has symptoms that might possibly be CV. Right now we're just getting data on people who have a certain level of symptoms, but they aren't the only people who actually have the virus... and our epidemiology database is hugely incomplete as a result. So along with making more masks, gowns, and ventilator, that ought to be a national priority, a worldwide priority. Like, shut down all the wars, turn the weapons factories into N95 mask factories, employ all the soldiers there kind of priority.

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[–] Who (5146) 5 years ago

Look at what South Korea did with testing and read up on facts not faux 🦊 fantasy fiction.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down

"Testing is central" to the outbreak response, said Kang, "because that leads to early detection. It minimizes further spread." And it allows health authorities to quickly isolate and treat those found with the virus. ... They've used testing aggressively to identify cases — not only testing people who are so sick that they're hospitalized but also mild cases and even suspected cases. They've quarantined tens of thousands of people who may have been exposed to confirmed cases.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

they are keeping us alive.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

The cashier was behind a plexiglass shield in the one I was in today.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Was the plexiglass barrier new that you know of?

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It is new. They are going up in most supermarkets here.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Huh. None here yet, but it's not surprising supermarkets are putting them up now to protect their cashiers.

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

I’ve heard our Home Depot did the same recently also.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Really? Then it sounds like it's a spreading Thing. Where are you? As I recall you're in the US, but I don't know what part of it. West coast, east, middle, south, north?

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

I’m in Louisiana about 60 miles from New Orleans, which is a hot spot because of Mardi Gras.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Were precautions taken during Mardi Gras this year, or did that happen too early for people to be taking it seriously?

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I think all the celebrations were cancelled on Bourbon Street

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Good to hear it. That was about a month ago so I wasn't sure how seriously it was being taken then. Time flies when you're having fun, huh?

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Was it that long ago already? My friend sent me a Snapchat video yesterday where a local radio station was playing xmas music and I said maybe we've been quarantined for 8 months and didn't even realize it.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

😄 It hasn't been *that* long.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I feel like we're all living in a Twilight Zone episode lately and nothing would surprise me at this point.

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

No, actually Mardi Gras went on as planned with New Orleans swarming with people from everywhere.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

😐

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It did? Wow, not sure what I'm thinking of then...that is disturbing (both it going on as planned and me apparently dealing with some sort of early memory loss)

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[–] Mrmojo4700 (21718) 5 years ago

Burbon street is empty now and that’s what you’ve probably been seeing on tv.

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[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

Sometimes it really does feel that way. A week or two ago (who knows how long ago it really was?) I was waking up thinking "Is this really happening??"

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