Coronavirus: Please use this thread for all COVID19 talk!

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Lemons and Oranges said:
One subtlety in the comparison between WWII 'panic buying' and the current round of shelf stripping is that, for the most part, during the war (I sound like Uncle Albert) shops in Britain required customers to ask for items, which were picked up by shop assistants, and handed over. The introduction of rationing and needing coupons for specific products further limited the ability of people to take whatever they wanted, with no thought for their fellow man.

I suspect that people in the 1940s were no more or less altruistic than they are today, but the ability to take whatever was on offer, and bugger everyone else, was not an option, when people could not serve themselves. Supermarkets are belatedly trying to limit the number of items that any one person can buy, and they are trying to organise times when only certain people can enter their shops (such as Health workers, or the elderly), but when hospital staff can only go shopping at the end of their shift, the ability to purchase necessities at other times is not an option.

How long before we all get ration books, and a black market springs up?
Click to expand...
Good points.
 
timatoketchup said:
People will always gather in groups even if you shut everything down, it's human nature.
Also if you close shops, how do people eat?
Click to expand...

And I'm just going to say: I know you think I'm full of ****. I know that you think I've gone way over the top on this. For the next month, pretend I'm not. What's the worst that can happen? You get to tell me off in a few weeks for making you bored, that's it, and I look like a moron. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrodinger's Cat and thereisonlyoneno7
Here in Palma de Mallorca, everybody comes out on to their balconies at 8 to say hi and applaud the work of the frontline services involved in this. I imaginé this will happen in the UK. Incidently, there is more noise in the neighbourhood tonight than normal as people are partying on their own terraces.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thereisonlyoneno7
Schad said:
And I'm just going to say: I know you think I'm full of ****. I know that you think I've gone way over the top on this. For the next month, pretend I'm not. What's the worst that can happen? You get to tell me off in a few weeks for making you bored, that's it, and I look like a moron. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Click to expand...
Ok mate, we have different opinions on this. Let it be known that I am seeing this chaos first hand as a manager of a leading supermarket brand locally. I'm under HUGE pressure but with the right people and sensible customers we will get through this eventually. Much love.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thereisonlyoneno7, Lemons and Oranges and The Ides of March
timatoketchup said:
People will always gather in groups even if you shut everything down, it's human nature.
Also if you close shops, how do people eat?
Click to expand...

We will, eventually if the government gets it right, go down the same route as Spain.
All shops closed except for supermarkets and pharmacies.
People are allowed out for exercise or to walk dogs, BUT alone.
Cars can only have one person in them, unless the passenger is disabled or needing of support to get to an A&E or other emergency.
People breaking this rule are being stopped and fined.
I read yesterday that someone even had to order 2 taxis to take her and her husband to the airport, because taxis can only carry one passenger at a time.
Armed forces, ie soldiers are already on the streets, in armoured vehicles.
The police and Guardia are parking up in the middle of streets to be a visible presence and act as a deterrent.
People out walking are being stopped and questioned as to their reasons for being out.
In the current circumstances people gathering in groups are being inconsiderate and, frankly, quite stupid.

Edit.
Shoppers shop alone, as in 1 person per shopping trolley etc, not a couple or the entire family.
 
timatoketchup said:
Ok mate, we have different opinions on this. Let it be known that I am seeing this chaos first hand as a manager of a leading supermarket brand locally. I'm under HUGE pressure but with the right people and sensible customers we will get through this eventually. Much love.
Click to expand...


The salient word here is 'sensible', aka altruistic. Why do you expect people to think of others? In a Utopian society, we will all be overwhelmingly 'nice', but several generations of people who had no need to look out for anyone else, other than their immediate families, has resulted in a 'me first, second, third...' attitude to everything, in this case anything available for sale. Unless and until a 'higher authority', ie the government, imposes restrictions on what people can buy, many people will simply take what is on offer, leaving nothing.
The measure of any society is how it looks after its vulnerable people, and unfortunately we, the British people, are falling somewhat short in the compassion stakes. I'm hopefully entirely wrong in this, but the current situation appears to show that taking anything/everything that one possibly can seems to be the default position.

Apart from that, how are things?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Osvaldorama and San Tejón
timatoketchup said:
Ok mate, we have different opinions on this. Let it be known that I am seeing this chaos first hand as a manager of a leading supermarket brand locally. I'm under HUGE pressure but with the right people and sensible customers we will get through this eventually. Much love.
Click to expand...

You and I, and others in the food chain are putting ourselves at risk of contracting the virus, simply by going to work and being surrounded by large numbers of people, several days per week.
My colleagues and I come into direct contact with drivers from Spain and Germany and it is only a matter of time before someone catches the virus and it begins to spread throughout the company.
 
  • Like
Reactions: timatoketchup
In some ways, it's worse. They aren't doing coffins, for the most part: there's no capacity left in Bergamo. They're taking the bodies in military convoys to be cremated elsewhere.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Libby
Schad said:
In some ways, it's worse. They aren't doing coffins, for the most part: there's no capacity left in Bergamo. They're taking the bodies in military convoys to be cremated elsewhere.
Click to expand...

You must log in or register to see images


Yeah I'd definitely say worse.
 
Lemons and Oranges said:
The salient word here is 'sensible', aka altruistic. Why do you expect people to think of others? In a Utopian society, we will all be overwhelmingly 'nice', but several generations of people who had no need to look out for anyone else, other than their immediate families, has resulted in a 'me first, second, third...' attitude to everything, in this case anything available for sale. Unless and until a 'higher authority', ie the government, imposes restrictions on what people can buy, many people will simply take what is on offer, leaving nothing.
The measure of any society is how it looks after its vulnerable people, and unfortunately we, the British people, are falling somewhat short in the compassion stakes. I'm hopefully entirely wrong in this, but the current situation appears to show that taking anything/everything that one possibly can seems to be the default position.

Apart from that, how are things?
Click to expand...
Personally horrible with 14hr shifts 6 days etc we rely upon youngsters who continue to suprise me with the work ethic most of my/our generation presumed was just held by us.
If you can get to a checkout a little thanks to the person who served you makes a difference to moral.
LETS KEEP GOING.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OddRiverOakWizards, ChilcoSaint and Lemons and Oranges
St Badger said:
You and I, and others in the food chain are putting ourselves at risk of contracting the virus, simply by going to work and being surrounded by large numbers of people, several days per week.
My colleagues and I come into direct contact with drivers from Spain and Germany and it is only a matter of time before someone catches the virus and it begins to spread throughout the company.
Click to expand...
I know mate, we have spoken, but if we don't do it, who will?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Osvaldorama
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back