Is emergency hour for the elderly a recipe for disaster?

[Derbygerbil]

Just looking at scenes earlier online of loads of elderly and vulnerable people are packing together in a Sainsburys in Balham. With the one hour window they are concentrating in far higher densities than they would do if they just staggered their visits through the day!

Whereas this might be a well meaning plan, it surely risks being disastrously counter-productive!

It's the first one, when the number of people who have been unable to shop is quite high.

If they do these 'vulnerable' hours more days, then it will spread them out and they will become less crowded

Maybe, but vulnerable people are just as likely to have it as others, and anything that encourages grouping like this can’t be a good thing! And many older people will see this as an opportunity to get out and about... they often don’t do weekly shops.

My local Tesco Extra is doing an hour between 9-10 for the over 70’s on Mon/Wed/Fri.
The problem is, the store is open to the whole of the general public from 7-9. Apparently at 9am they are going to make a tannoy announcement for everyone under the age of 70 to leave. Like that’s going to happen! It’s bloody ridiculous.