Early in the pandemic, certain stores announced hours (or days) for senior citizens to shop.
Now we are in a situation where it doesn’t look like we’re ever going to reach herd immunity by vaccination, but may do so by the hesitant actually contracting the disease. In the meantime everyone else is put at risk.
What about all of the people who for a perfectly valid reason CANNOT take the vaccine? And those others who are worried about breakthrough illnesses. Wouldn’t it make sense to reinstate special shopping hours at stores to protect them? (Also - ALL shoppers during these time periods would have to wear masks.)
In fact, I saw, on last night’s news, that Costco has reversed an earlier decision to get rid of their senior shopping hours, due to rising numbers of COVID cases.
I absolutely support senior hours or discount delivery to seniors. The immune system deteriorates with age such that even vaccinated seniors are not going to get quite the same sustained immunity that someone 20 to 49 years of age might. Seniors require special consideration across a whole range of situations.
I was up early Sunday and hit the stores at 6 AM. The few other shoppers seemed to be the ones using extra caution – I recall only one person who was not wearing a mask.
The downside was that many items were not available, I guess that the Friday/Saturday shoppers were out in force, and the stores were going to restock after Sunday.