Amazon begins temperature checks and will provide surgical masks at warehouses

Our local grocery store chain (Wegmans) finally let workers wear masks last night, as well.

The Trader Joe's near me took the most serious steps so far. They are limiting to 30 people in the store at a time and setup 'lanes' six feet apart for carts to lineup for checkout. When you checkout, they take the cart and have you stand back while they ring up and bag your stuff. When it's time to pay they back up from the register and let you pay and take your own receipt. I say these are the most serious steps because the other grocery stores near me haven't changed much of anything last time I went to them.

It was a little weird at first, but I am willing to go through whatever hoops to make the grocery workers comfortable.

How does the process described help prevent the issue of an infected person placing grocery items in the cart while shopping, only to have the cashier touch them at a later point in time?

It doesn't, but it helps keep people separated. I did notice each cashier had their own bottle of hand sanitizer, so that could help if they used it after each transaction. Personally, I would still want gloves and a surgical mask if I were them.

I'm not an expert, but, if in the described scenario the cashier doesn't touch their face and they frequently wash hands/change gloves, I don't think this method of transmission is as effective as close proximity transmission via the humid air coming in and out of your nose and mouth.

All of these steps have already been going on at my local Whole Foods for almost two weeks now. I don't know if it was a single-store thing or a broader Whole Foods thing, but it has been weird to me seeing people harp on Amazon's response to this when the Whole Foods near me has been the only business seemingly implementing any safety measures.

It was weird at first, but everything went smoothly after the initial weirdness of people obliviously walking past the line in front of the store and trying to go inside only to be told to turn around and stand in line.

Ahh gotcha, I see now. I definitely think something is better than nothing in this context and would help slow and/or reduce transmission in general! Just wasn't sure if I had missed something or what have you.

I am hoping more grocery stores near me are taking similar steps. This was the first time I've gone to the store in 2 weeks, so it's possible others are doing the same as well by now. The last time I went to a bigger store near me (Marianno's) was 3 weeks ago and they weren't doing any steps like this or limiting items per purchase yet.

In Poland only 3 customers per checkout are allowed in the store(so if the store has 5 manned tills, only 15 customers can be in the store). Also all customers and employees have to be wearing gloves while.inside the store.

The Trader Joe’s that is 50 feet from me has been like this for the last two weeks as well. So likely fairly common across that chain.

> it has been weird to me seeing people harp on Amazon's response to this when the Whole Foods near me has been the only business seemingly implementing any safety measures

It's not weird at all to me.

Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers and their treatment of customers are wildly different.

Reddit has been plastered with reports from Amazon warehouse workers that they have had temperature checks and PPE (except for masks due to shortages) for weeks now. It doesn't seem to be that different.

It just seems to be on a case-by-case (or per location) basis, while the media seems to be just choosing the locations where there isn't such measures and extrapolating wildly.

Any sources? Or at least 1-2 subreddits where one can read Amazon warehouse workers public discussions?

Comments like this are maddening.

No mitigation effort is perfect. Not even vaccines work perfectly.

The point is to reduce the average number of people that each infected person spreads the disease to. Not to get it to 0, which is impossible.