Still refusing to go to the shops

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Yesterday non-essential stores reopened after 3 months and yet I still won't go to the shops I used to enjoy going to in town simply because of the crisis and the amount of people being there might be uncomfortable and that in some shops I've frequented social distancing maybe difficult. I would love to get back to doing that again but I feel can't due to these circumstances. I will be returning to work next Monday and I feel I will go out only to work and when I am not working I will continue to stay at home and maybe choose to shop online. I don't know if I am being sensible or far too sensible or not bothering to at least try and go out and practice the new going out rules because I'm anxious and apprehensive and too complacent in my own home because its been my comfort zone for the last 3 months.

I've started to go grocery shopping when it isn't crowded. Which means early in the week and before 9AM.
I know where the stuff on my list is located in the shops, so I can zip in and out of the stores.
No waiting in line for the cash register!

I'm not going into shops, I'm sticking with online grocery shopping and delivery. I'll put up with the packers putting tins on top of the salad leaves, even though its driving me nuts.

I've been in grocery stores twice since March and the most recent visit was since the restrictions have been eased.

No thank you, not unless I have no other option, people don't seem to understand why social distancing and safety precautions are necessary.

I'm not risking catching it again or being responsible for spreading it to vulnerable people.

The way you feel is understandable. It would be one thing if infection rates have dwindled down to nothing, but that's not the case. I have been going to stores only when absolutely necessary and when I do, I "suit up" with N95, sealed wrap around glasses, a hat, gloves and alcohol wipes in my vehicle when I'm done. At this point I can't picture a time when I'll go to a sit-down restaurant again, which is sad; nor do I get take out food.

Where I live, it's disconcerting to see probably 50% of people in the stores who wear no masks at all. It's not mandatory here.

Wise decision; it's better to wait a week or two after places open (when you can) since then the biggest mass hysteria will likely have dissapeared already.

I haven't been in Tesco since March, because I can't cope with the queue and the strict rules. Yes there's even people queuing as soon as the store opens early in the morning, and I don't like going in the evenings as it's just full of teenagers buying drinks. So I do all my grocery shopping online, which wasn't what I wanted to resort to but my anxiety just became too high.

All the other shops have opened now but I feel so anxious about going in them because of the queues and the rules. Some shops have different rules to others. The pet supplies shop is the only shop I feel comfortable going in, because it's rather calm in there and there's not often a queue and you're just politely reminded to keep 2 metres away from others as you walk in. No arrows to follow or people yelling at you.

If your health is bad or your friends and family got coronovirus,, your statement is reasonable

Otherwise, overreaction

It is your choice of which store you go to

I've kind of been forced into real-world grocery shopping, as round here it has been literally impossible to book an online grocery delivery slot from day one. They tend to be released up to three weeks away, but all slots are taken whenever I look. At the stroke of midnight, the website goes down under the weight of tens of thousands of people all trying to grab slots on the newly released day.

Been trying to keep shopping runs down to once a week, though it's usually more like 5 days. I only go to the two little supermarkets nearby, where the number of shoppers is more manageable. (Both from a disease-avoidance and an "aaaargh help me there's humans!" point of view.) I've heard some right horror stories from friends who use the big out-of-town places. I'm generally the only person there wearing a mask. Social distancing behaviour isn't too awful, but around the checkouts people get a bit stuck and have to scurry past each other with averted faces. Welcome to my world, NTs!

I'm ambivalent about non-essential shops re-opening yesterday. One side of me is glad the high street is getting a chance to recover. But even though I'm now back at work myself, I'm very reluctant to go into town. I was more interested to learn that a couple of independant shops in my town have now got web stores.

It is a very tricky situation and it isn't just you that are feeling this way.

I wouldn't want to go anywhere near shops that are likely to be busy - the only place I've been is the post office to post a few parcels.

Nobody should feel pressurised into doing anything they don't feel comfortable doing right now.

Best to wait a few weeks and see what happens.

I had probably 2-3 weeks worth of food and was all set to stay in. I'm in the weird, inbetween "vulnerable but not highly vulnerable" group and had been going out every so often up until a fortnight ago when the rest of the UK seemingly forgot all about Covid-19. At that point it became significantly more dangerous for me.

So yeah, all good for a few weeks of avoiding people.

And then my fridge / freezer completely packed up yesterday and I had to throw away LOTS of food.

I don't blame you for not wanting to take the risk. Let the government and the media say what they like, there's still a risk from shopping and non-essential shopping is, well, non-essential. It's a personal decision. Some will feel the benefit outweighs the risk, others will feel the opposite, but nobody absolutely knows. The risk can't easily be quantified. I've seen no data on the probability of getting infected from a visit to Primark. Such a number would depend heavily on unpredictable factors such as whether or not fellow shoppers at the particular store at the time are going to be sensible. The whole issue seems imponderable from a logical perspective.

Me, if I loved shopping for non-essentials in the UK, I'd have a hard time weighing up the risk against the benefit. Luckily I'm barely interested in real-life shopping so it's a simple decision. If it wasn't, I'd factor in my strong revulsion to Boris' suggestion that it's my civic duty to support local non-essential businesses with my custom, and my strong suspicion that most governments are quietly putting business before people, and I don't want to be used as a canary*. It doesn't help when the media says "the downward trend in new cases and deaths continues" when it could just as accurately have said that the downward trend is collapsing. I'd also suggest that we all wait a while in any case, because there's talk of a VAT cut if the shops don't do very well without one.

*
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canary_in_a_coal_mine

Strangely I seem to be more afraid of being yelled at in stores than of catching coronavirus.

Joe I thought of you on Monday. I was in a shop for the first time since March. I waited outside, used the disinfectant, and kept my distance. It wasn't until I was almost finished that I thought of your posts about the direction markers on the floor. I checked, and sure enough I had been walking the wrong way up and down aisles. No one said anything, but I was ashamed that I hadn't even noticed the arrows. I guess if someone told me off I could play stupid and say it was my first time and I didn't know better, which was true, but I had empathy for what you've experienced!

Well, at least no one said anything. It's so embarrassing when they yell across the shop at you. And I bet you didn't even pass on any coronavirus germs, and anyway you and probably everyone else in the shop at the time probably didn't even have coronavirus.

Slightly crude language, but the general attitude of this resonated with me:
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/bus ... 0617197570

Compare and contrast with this blatant piece of whacking-up-the-market propaganda by the BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-53055687

I couldn't seem to get this right in the Co-op. Eventually I realised the "this way" signs didn't actually form a valid network- you had to disobey them at some point to get all the way through the shop!