A worried customer shopping in Tesco Extra in Westwood yesterday (April 1) says a staff member was close to tears due to people ignoring social distancing advice.
The customer said the store worker was so upset she even asked him to complain to management about the crowding.
His photos show people next to each other instore despite the supermarket installing floor markings for social distancing and operating a limit on the number of customers inside at any one time.
The customer said: “It was heaving, every aisle was busy. I said to a lady worker ‘it’s packed in here’ and she turned around close to tears and said ‘I know, could you please complain to the manager?’
“You couldn’t socially distance in there, it was scary.”
Tesco says it is introducing additional measures to protect staff and customers, including installing protective screens at the checkouts. Other supermarkets, such as Aldi, have screens in place to protect their staff.
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We are introducing additional measures to protect our customers and colleagues and ensure that everyone in our stores maintains a safe distance. We’re asking customers to help by following some simple requests when they shop with us.”
The store has signs with safety advice in the car park and shop and will be offering hand sanitiser and cleaning wipes to help customers shop safely. There is already a queuing system (pictured above) in place to make sure only a certain number of shoppers are in store at any one time.
Tesco stores also have:
- Floor markings in the car park aim to help customers to maintain safe distances when queuing.
- A limit on the flow of people coming into the store to ensure they don’t get too congested.
- Hand sanitisers placed around stores for customers and staff to use, as well as extra cleaning products for customers to wipe down the trolley or basket.
- Directional floor markings and new signage, to create a safe flow around the store.
- Floor markings to help keep a safe distance from others while waiting to pay.
- Installation of protective screens at checkouts being carried out.
- Where possible, separate entrances and exits to stores
What is social distancing?
Social distancing measures are steps to reduce social interaction between people. This will help reduce the transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19).
They are to:
- Avoid contact with someone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19). These symptoms include high temperature and/or new and continuous cough
- Avoid non-essential use of public transport when possible
- Work from home, where possible.
- Avoid large and small gatherings
- Avoid gatherings with friends and family. Keep in touch using remote technology such as phone, internet, and social media
- Use telephone or online services to contact your GP or other essential services
- If you meet others when you are outdoors (or shopping) ensure that you stay at least 2 metres away
Stay at home if you have either:
- a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
- a new, continuous cough – this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly
Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.
You do not need to contact 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.
if you have symptoms, stay at home for 7 days
if you live with other people, they should stay at home for 14 days from the day the first person got symptoms
If you live with someone who is 70 or over, has a long-term condition, is pregnant or has a weakened immune system, try to find somewhere else for them to stay for 14 days.
If you have to stay at home together, try to keep away from each other as much as possible.
Use the NHS 111 online coronavirus service if:
- you feel you cannot cope with your symptoms at home
- your condition gets worse
- your symptoms do not get better after 7 days
THIS DOESN’T SURPRISE ME IN THE SLIGHTEST MY PARTNER AND I WENT SHOPPING THIS WEEKEND AND WENT INTO B&M AND WAS TOLD BY THE STORE DOOR SECURITY MARSHAL THAT YOU MUST KEEP A 2 METER DISTANCE CUSTOMERS WERE WALKING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND EVEN BUMPING INTO US BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T WANT TO WAIT FOR OTHER CUSTOMER. WE COMPLAINED ABOUT THIS SERIOUS PROBLEM AND WAS TOLD THAT THEY WERE DOING THERE BEST AND THAT THE DOOR MARSHAL WAS NOT ALLOWED INSIDE THE STORE TO REMIND CUSTOMERS ABOUT THE 2 METER SOCIAL DISTANCE BETWEEN CUSTOMERS WE WERE TOLD IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOP IN B&M. THEREFORE WE HAVE BOTH DECIDED IT WOULD BE SAFER NOT TO AT THIS PRESENT TIME UNTIL THEY CAN MAKE IT SAFER FOR THERE CUSTOMERS LIKE A ONE WAY SYSTEM WITH ARROWS AND 2 METER MARKERS.
What is wrong with people? Don’t they understand how serious this pandemic is? It just shows how stupid some people are.
It seems to be a normal day on the streets in town and at supermarkets when people are supposed to be home isolating. How is the virus going to stop spreading when all these people are out each day not socially distancing? Why are groups of teenagers riding around on bikes and playing football down the parks? They are not on school holidays! Why are the elderly walking about? Why are the police doing nothing to stop people and tell them to go home? Where are the police even? Why is nobody taking the covid-19 coronavirus lockdown seriously? It is their friends and relatives that are going to get sick and die prematurely. This is negligence by those given the authority to keep order and it is obviously not working in Thanet. Strict rules are being ignored which is very worrying!
This lockdown applies to ALL ages, not just the elderly. The old ‘uns still have to get some supplies and medicines and simply have to go out when needed, unfortunately.
Well Kent Resident, I am not seeing them in large swathes when I am forced to go out shopping to get enough to eat-maybe because they have dogs to walk & are allowed one form of exercise per day as mandated by our glorious Stasi leader Boris. Also because the supermarkets & government sat on their behinds for two months doing nothing, most people cannot get a home delivery & so if the elderly don’t have relatives then they either go out to shop or starve to death-again Boris said we can go shopping rather than starve to death-which is nice of him seeing as he & the supermarkets have totally messed hime deliveries up & aren’t sending the army round with basic provisions.
I haven’t seen any groups of kids riding round on bikes on my travails or from my front room window. I see 2 or 3 kids playing football sporadically-usually with their father & they aren’t getting near other people, the streets & parks are mostly deserted & just have a few people in at any one time-very well spaced out.
People have started taking this seriously the last couple of weeks since a month or more too late Boris decided to close everything bar essential shops, along with entertainment venues, thus there is nothing to do as a result & perhaps blame for those that aren’t should be directed at our ruling party-Boris who in the first week of March was boasting that he was walking round hospitals shaking hands with Corona Virus victims & doctors, going on This Morning & forcing Philip Schofield to shake his hand-while always spouting how you cannot get infected by shaking hands & all the evidence is hand washing after is the key-backed up by his health secretary.
Then even more recently the two of them & others all huddling round the speakers chair against their own advice & surprise not long after both of them were diagnosed as having it. If these are the people running the land, the ones supposed to be getting us through this then we are in real trouble.
Can co-sign Steves comment here.
Most of “the elderly” are allowed to go out to do basic shopping and take exercise.
Dear Kent Resident, No one is ordered by law yet to completely remain indoors, we elderly are allowed to escape our home prisons to shop and exercise as the government allows. In Tesco yesterday it was not to bad. However I did see two police constables shopping and ignoring the government advice on distancing. One rule for one and another or us? To be honest we do not have enough Police to enforce much at all. Most sensible residents are doing all of it correctly . I walk my dog and hardly anyone out. I still see people spitting in the street which is a direct hazard. Not everyone cares. So don’t blame us elderly all the time for staying fit and trying to stay healthy.
I have been told that Sainsbury’s only allows a maximum of 100 people in the store at any one time. Tesco seems to be free for all. They could not care less as long as they keep taking the money.q
How right you are Ann. That is TESCOs only main concern.
Asda, on the other hand, were only letting shoppers in as others were exiting, thus keeping the numbers down. They also had a one-way system marked out on the floor and everyone was keeping their distance, but then it’s easier to do that when the number of customers is regulated by the staff who, obviously, cared about social distancing and the health benefits to themselves, their customers and the wider public. I shall not be going back to Tesco after this.
I shall not use Tesco ever again after going there for the “elderly” hour only to find it was open to everyone. They were just relying on people to give priority to the elderly for that one hour – that’s a joke !!!!
All they do is ask people respect the elderly & NHS hours online & as we have seen with the hoarding of toilet paper etc many people are selfish & don’t give a hoot about anybody else. A more sensible approach would be to designate one day a week for only the NHS workers to shop & one for the elderly only-with some form of proof of being an NHS worker or being over 70 required for entry & do away these special hours-which Tesco is doing too late from 9-10 anyway-the other shops do them from 7.30-9.00 & it works a lot better.
Not to say the elderly & NHS cannot shop there on the five other days if they so wish, but that system would be fairer to everybody than the current one-Dave Lewis is doing it to make his company look good/virtue signalling as evidenced by saying everylittlehelps all the time when anybody really wanting to help people would not be doing. That these supermarkets knew in January there would be these issues they have done nothing until the last 2-3 weeks.
My partner works at an asda , customers still getting to near to him in the aisles and crowding around him when doing reductions , store security had to step in to ask people to move away from him.
I have seen some total idiocy from customers recently-some meathead in Sainsbury’s at Westwood a couple of weeks back moaning to two members of staff about something he wanted not being on the shelf-meaning they were standing too close together & blocking others from getting past while the male colleague explained there are shortages because it is a pandemic-meaning we were then forced to get way too close to them to get past-totally selfish behaviour.
In both there & Tesco also at Westwood the number of chumps getting very close to members of staff to ask if they have certain items is beyond belief-if they did they would be on the shelves & they haven’t got time to go out the back to check. If it isn’t there then buy an alternative or go without.
Both the government & the supermarkets have made a total mess of this-they knew back in January how bad this was going to be, yet did nothing until 2-3 weeks back-only now are the screens being put around the tills-this should have been done last month, as should have been the limiting of how many people can be in the store in one go. We are told to stay home, but have to keep going out to shop just to survive, because the government & supermarkets didn’t do anything about hiring more delivery drivers, general staff, getting more vans on the road last month-so nobody can get delivery slots, weren’t the 70 plus supposed to be staying in for 12 weeks? They can’t because like the rest of us we will starve to death & the supermarket bosses in their greed allowed people to stockpile for weeks, why are they still allowing people to stockpile Detol Wipes & toilet paper? Why do people need 3 packs of 24 toilet paper week after week which means the rest of us are struggling to find them?
Realistically it is totally impossible to be two metres apart in supermarkets all the time, we just have to do out best-however last week in this Tesco store they marked the queues with X shaped tape on the floor, but we were all lining up down the aisles keeping two metres away from each other, but while we were standing there of course as we are lining up where produce is other customers were walking right by us about 9-18 inches away-as it is impossible to keep a two metre distance, staff were also doing this-one member of staff was virtually right in a customers face putting stuff on the shelves, taking stock off etc while the lady was standing on the cross.
Sainsbury’s nearby had the best irony of all earlier this week-the Tannoy announcement reminding us all to keep two metres apart, just as somebody having problems with one of the serve yourself checkouts needed help from a member of staff who then had to stand right next to her-probably 2 inches away from the customers face, this after one poor member of staff was standing there coughing & sneezing while putting produce away-she patently shouldn’t be at work, yet is obviously expected to be there putting herself & everybody else at risk.
Afraid that Tesco have shot themselves in the foot by having NHS & OAP only access at the late time of 9-10 six days per week, Sainsburys opens at 7.30 certain days for the NHS & then 8-9 for the 70 plus people. Asda is doing some 8-9 slots as well. Of course if these companies had bothered to sort out the home deliveries then both their staff & the rest of us wouldn’t need to leave the house & going into the stores & risking everybody’s health-perhaps Dave Lewis could stop virtue signalling with his inane everylittlehelps hashtag as well when telling us about this virus-it just comes off as promoting his company & trying to make money, rather than giving a damn about the safety of his staff & customers & actually make real changes.