As the United States became the most affected country by the coronavirus outbreak, retailers were forced to take extreme measures, including limiting the number of shoppers allowed to enter stores, in an attempt to encourage social distancing.
Some retailers took limits even further, by restricting the access of children under 16 from stores during the pandemic.
Obviously, these are all signs confirming that the retail sector will be among the most affected by the current situation.
Temperature checks and identification for clients
Menards, for example, will ask for identification to anybody who enters their stores and appears to be under 16.
“We absolutely love families, but need to lessen the number of people shopping in stores, and I think it goes without saying that children need to be protected,” spokesman Jeff Abbott said, adding that the home improvement chain will also begin taking shoppers’ and employees’ temperatures across their nation-wide chain.
“We started doing temperature checks at Eau Claire West Menards as customers and employees enter the store and we’ll start doing temperature checks in all of our stores as soon as we can get thermometers to them,” Abbott revealed.
And this is not an isolated case, as the towns of Wilkesboro and North Wilkesboro, in North Carolina, will start prohibiting children from joining their parents into stores “if there is a person of suitable age available to supervise the child elsewhere”.
Also, Retailers like Amazon, Walmart or Home Depot announced that they have already started to take employees’ temperatures.
Should masks be mandatory?
Surgeon General Jerome Adams revealed this Friday that the general public shouldn’t begin wearing medical-grade equipment, as these measures should be reserved for the medical industry.
On the other side, people showing COVID-19 symptoms should wear protective masks, while everybody else should resume to cloth masks while in public places, like grocery stores or pharmacies.
