FROM LA TIMES
By Anna M. Phillips
The day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early April advised everyone to cover their faces in public, the co-owner of a small network of grocery stores in Wisconsin logged in to Facebook and began a post: “HELP!”
She had been waiting on a shipment of masks to protect her employees, but like many grocers’ orders, it was delayed. Dedicated patrons sprang into action — within a matter of days they had outfitted all 400 workers with homemade masks.
Over six weeks after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, and long after grocery workers were deemed essential, major retailers have begun to provide them with masks. Walmart and Kroger , the largest supermarket chains in the country, have announced new policies requiring all employees to wear masks. Some independently owned stores are still awaiting shipments or have yet to find a distributor to provide them.
Washington, it seems, has contributed to the delay.
The blame should be put on the city, the city’s could issue an emergency conditional usage permit, within so many hours, all public stores open for the essential business, should have cleansers and masks, or will be ordered to close. Also when patrons have to stand outside, for safe distancing, there should be some kind of weatherization shields, to protect patrons from standing in the rain and the Heat of the Sun. No one needs to be wet from rains and then have to shop wet clothes/ hair of received sun burns from standing outside of have heat stoke from digestion of RX to keep alive.
I’m sure if pressure was put on the Chamber of Commerce in every city in the nation, they can come up with some businesses who could do some supplying of masks, sanitizer lotion and all-weather outside Shields.
Many of these exterior lines are longer as couple hundred patrons and can take 1-2 hrs of standing to gain entry.