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Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 13.51
by Philip

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 16.49
by Martin Phillp
Greggs is closed from tomorrow.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 17.34
by WillPS
Subway have "authorised franchise owners to close" too.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 19.49
by Martin Phillp
KFC outlets will gradually close by Wednesday.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 21.09
by thegeek
gottago wrote: Sat 21 Mar, 2020 23.22 I wonder if Tuesday is going to be the official lockdown quarantine day. Emails from both National Express and John Lewis have said their last full days of service will be on Monday which seems an odd day of the week to choose otherwise. At least announcing it for Tuesday allows a last office prep day on Monday for everyone to prepare.
Good call.

My parents took the decision to close their (very much non-essential) shop this morning, largely because the staff were increasingly uncomfortable with dealing with the public, who were not doing a good job of keeping their distance. (And then Nicola Sturgeon asked all non-essential shops to close; followed later by Boris Johnson's sterner words.)

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 21.48
by Martin Phillp
My anxiety has dropped since Boris made his statement about the lockdown. At least I know where I stand and can still pop out briefly for food as long as I don't have the symptoms.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Thu 26 Mar, 2020 19.04
by cwathen
Martin Phillp wrote: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 21.48 My anxiety has dropped since Boris made his statement about the lockdown. At least I know where I stand and can still pop out briefly for food as long as I don't have the symptoms.
Despite the virus itself rapidly accelerating, the whole situation feels a lot more stable since the lockdown. There wasn't the large scale civil unrest which I feared by a government infringing on civil liberty in a country that isn't used to it, meanwhile the panic buying nutters stripping shelves seemed to have calmed down (or just run out of space for more), supermarkets are well stocked (even if they've cut back on range a bit in order to boost stocks of those they have kept), most workers have some assurance over their jobs, social distancing is getting through and being taken seriously and we're still allowed to pop out for a bit of exercise.

I predict quite a boost for Sainsbury's smartshop during all this - with the socially distanced spaced out checkouts it's currently taking me 75% of my time in the store to queue up and pay with so many manned checkouts closed and so many self scans turned off. Whilst those smartshop people are straight in and out.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Thu 26 Mar, 2020 19.31
by all new Phil
cwathen wrote: Thu 26 Mar, 2020 19.04
Martin Phillp wrote: Mon 23 Mar, 2020 21.48 My anxiety has dropped since Boris made his statement about the lockdown. At least I know where I stand and can still pop out briefly for food as long as I don't have the symptoms.
Despite the virus itself rapidly accelerating, the whole situation feels a lot more stable since the lockdown. There wasn't the large scale civil unrest which I feared by a government infringing on civil liberty in a country that isn't used to it, meanwhile the panic buying nutters stripping shelves seemed to have calmed down (or just run out of space for more), supermarkets are well stocked (even if they've cut back on range a bit in order to boost stocks of those they have kept), most workers have some assurance over their jobs, social distancing is getting through and being taken seriously and we're still allowed to pop out for a bit of exercise.
I think the government deserve a huge amount of praise for the way they’ve handled it so far. I think a Piers Morgan-approved lockdown would have led to the civil unrest you refer to, however the tone has been absolutely correct in getting people to comply from what I have seen.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Thu 26 Mar, 2020 20.32
by thegeek
It feels like they could have gone for it before the weekend and people would have still gone along with it, rather than had a lovely time and caused that peak to rise more - I guess we'll see the consequences of that in about a week.

Anyway, I think I'm kind of getting used to this never leaving the house thing.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Fri 27 Mar, 2020 13.03
by Martin Phillp
Iceland supermarkets will close at 6pm from today, the final hour being for NHS workers. The Food Warehouse is also closing slightly earlier at 7pm.

Sainsbury's introduced all day queuing from Thursday, which is making for a much more pleasurable experience in-store, which as mentioned, the majority of panic buying has ceased with plenty of food in-store, although toilet rolls and canned goods are still low in stock.

Re: Coronavirus - Strange times

Posted: Fri 27 Mar, 2020 15.33
by all new Phil
My bottle of hand wash is down to about 1cm from the bottom, with none in stock in any supermarkets I’ve been to. So yeah, well done stockpilers, I’m probably going to infect you now.