Why are the supermarket workers not getting sick?

[bulletjournalbilly]

So tell me this ...if supermarkets are a "danger zone" why aren't the supermarket workers all dying and getting sick with this "killer virus"?

Doctors and nurses

@IncrediblySadToo

That cuntish post by @epythymy has thankfully been deleted

I keep saying to DH that I feel I'm pretty safe to pop to the supermarket for an hour because I know for a fact no one who works there has been ill! How come they aren't getting seriously ill? I'm glad they aren't!

The unions have said that abuse by customers has doubled in the pandemic.

You only have to look on threads on here, all the people complaining about being locked down and treating going to shops like it is a chance to socialise and don’t care about the rules.

Retail workers are not going into work because they want to socialise with strangers. They are going in because they have to and we need shops to remain open.

then die from covid and how many contract it in what would have been their final days anyway

My grandma was 98 and caught a flu bug that spread through her care home like wildfire. They did little to stop it. She had only been in the home 3 weeks, she died of pneumonia brought on by the flu.

I don't recall any of us saying "oh well, she was near the end of her life, it's fine she died hooked up to oxygen, fighting for breath in a hospital"

The only good thing was that she died with her daughters sitting with her holding her hands, that isn't happening nowadays.

I'm shocked (but sadly not surprised) that people are so cavalier with the health of the elderly and the vulnerable.

the 99% majority. The risks of infection are low and theriskof dying is infinitesimal for the fit and healthy.

Actually it's a 96% majority and doing it your way means nearly 2 million people could die.

Happy with that?

You made all of this up.

Viral load is not a made up thing.

Haven't read all the comments but from my understanding of it, the time in which you are in contact with an infected person is a factor in how likely you are to pick it up. People rushing through a Tesco express aren't spending prolonged amounts of time with people.
In my experience, we had an infected person on my ward and none of the staff got COVID, and this was before we had PPE.

I keep saying to DH that I feel I'm pretty safe to pop to the supermarket for an hour because I know for a fact no one who works there has been ill!

But you don’t know that the staff members you are dealing with, don’t have it. Most people either have a milder version or absolutely no symptoms. You need to make sure you’re still taking precautions.

I know a few who have tested positive plus one who died

So why are people so unaware that retail workers are much more likely to die than doctors and nurses?

Supermarket workers have complained. They’ve complained re lack of protection, customers not keeping their distance, customers complaining... which is ok and to be expected, same as in any other profession when issues crop up during a pandemic.

Do a googleFlax, you do enough about the teaching profession.

I think those Perspex shields they sit behind are probably very effective. Shame teachers can’t have them.

Most retail workers are on the shop floor but not on a cash register, so can’t sit behind a screen.

I don’t think teachers should be sent back at all.

I was very pro lockdown, but I think we may look back and decide it didn’t actually make that much difference and was definitely more harming then letting the virus spread among the otherwise healthy population.

3/430 at my local Sainsburys. All recovered. Just asked chap at check out.

OhTheRoses - would he definitely have the right info though? Maybe 3 were tested? In a shop of 430 workers I'd be surprised that a checkout man knows all the HR data unless he was informed officially.

In a small shop, yes, people would know and maybe we should start asking, but I'm not sure I'd do that.

Retail workers are not the healthy population though.

The vulnerable group have to attend work if their job cannot be done from home.

Do people on MN not read the news or know any working class people?

3 of us in my shop have been off with symptoms of varying degrees. In my region they've had somebody off pretty much in every store at some point over the last few weeks.

HermioneWeasley - you cannot protect the vulnerable unless you know how, where and how rapidly the virus is spreading within the young, fit and healthy population. Lockdown was necessary to gain enough control over the virus that symptom awareness, testing, tracking and tracing could be put in place. At lockdown, the whole situation in the UK was far too out of control for this to be possible. You’d have to be seriously deluded to think the frail and vulnerable could be protected while a virus lets rip, given the fact that the frail and vulnerable need close contact with the young and healthy to care for them, so they cannot actually be the ones who do not visit hospitals and do not have contact with other human beings. So, either everyone has to lock down to protect the vulnerable, or you have to be in a position where you know what is actually going on with the virus so that you can protect the population more intelligently.

I think OP has a valid question.
You would've thought that more shop staff would have got it.

What % of the population do we think has already had it? What % of the population needs to get it? What are the targets?

They are I work in a supermarket and 2 colleagues have died from it and a few of I'll with it.

@Widowodiw Incorrect, over 100 school workers including teachers, TAs and office staff died of Covid.

@Oblomov20 Because no one is doing statistics on jobs affected outside NHS. The tagline was always to protect the NHS, but other professions have been equally affected- transpport workers, school staff, etc. The fact it is not in the news does not mean it is not happening. Out of 40000 suspected deaths related to covid, they are not all pensioneers and care workers, lots of other people too...

3/430 at my local Sainsburys. All recovered. Just asked chap at check out.

How does he know? I work in a supermarket. I don't get told why a person is off sick (and rightly so). I'm shielding. If any of my colleagues know why I'm off, and even worse if they are telling customers why, there will be hell to pay. That information is between me and my manager, not for general consumption by all and sundry.

What % of the population do we think has already had it? What % of the population needs to get it? What are the targets?

I've so far seen estimates of between 3% and 15% though Patrick Valance said he thinks it's below 10%. The results of the antibody study will be interesting (I seem to recollect 4% being cited but can't be sure about that).

We need over 60% and preferably of 70% for herd immunity.