Am I a vulnerable person from the supermarket's "special shopping hour" rule?

[frillyfarmer]

I'm an asthmatic, so classed in the Govt's "high risk" category. It's controlled with steroid inhaler and I consider myself to be a "mild" sufferer. I also have a 12 day old EBF baby who I would need to take to the shop with me due to the distance we live.

My original plan had been to do my shopping at 2/3am in a 24 hour store when baby was having one of her early morning wake ups, but apparently the supermarkets now aren't open 24hour?

I feel like a bit of a fraud impinging on the elderly's hour of shopping as I'm a 30year old otherwise fit and healthy adult. But at the same time I obviously need to bear in mind that I have a respiratory disease and I am vulnerable if I catch it.

Can I have some other opinions as to whether you think asthmatics fall into the vulnerable category of shopping?

No. My husband has asthma significantly worse than yours, he's 42 and I wouldn't dream of thinking he should go at the time set aside for the elderly. Have some consideration for truly vulnerable people.

@SleepingStandingUp

I have a vulnerable child (perm o2, underlying heart issues) and really could do without queuing for an hour amongst the germs to bring home to the 4 yo but I'm wary if going and being abused. It isn't as simple as only the old need help

That really is taking the piss. You're not even vulnerable yourself!

NO ONE wants to queue for an hour potentially getting infected.

I can't believe that such a sensible and simple initiative is being so abused by selfish people. Actually I can

I've got relatively uncontrolled asthma and would avoid going at the designated times if I could help it

It was an hour for vulnerable customers, the biggest group of those would have been the elderly but there are plenty of younger peop,e with potentially fatal heart and lung conditions, diabetes etc. I know a 60yo who went, insulin diabetic with uncontrolled high BP, so potential death rate around 10%. He checked with the manager before he went in. He told me there was already a queue round the carpark for when other customers were allowed in at 8 (not everyone knew about the special hour, others got there to be at the front of the 8am queue), so some of those photos doing the rounds may well not be of people trying to muscle in anyway.
He reckoned the only problem customers were large groups of elderly people congregating for a natter in the middle of aisles and completely blocking them. He saw staff move people on a few times.

Oh don't be a dick. My son has a disability and no blue badge. I'm fully aware not all disabled people need one.

if pulling someone up for saying "kind of people" when referring to any vulnerable group of people is being a dick, then a dick I am, and a dick I will stay.

apparently some people have got an email from Sainsburys containing:

We’ve already been able to identify some existing customers who are elderly, vulnerable and disabled through the data that we have about them and we will be contacting them in the coming days, but we know that we haven’t been able to identify all of our vulnerable customers. We’re working hard, alongside the government and retail industry, to identify more of them.

There’ll soon be a process in place so you can tell us that you’re elderly, disabled or vulnerable and get added to our vulnerable list and we’ll let you know how to do this through our website.

I just got the one for delivery pass customers that says we can have slots that are left over after that group is taken care of. No detail on what to do if they haven't picked up that you're disabled.