All of the bulk foods are covered up and unavailable, but they’ve started putting the food that you formerly could buy in bulk into sealed packages.
Vanilla Coke Zero is back! But now, for the last few weeks, I haven’t been able to find Oreo Lemon Thins. They have all the other Oreo flavors, both regular and thin style, even regular lemon Oreos, but there’s a big hole where the Oreo Lemon Thins are supposed to be.
We had a bad storm last year with protracted lower outages and the local stores had to throw out everything refrigerated. Even in normal times, restocking took a few days.
This sounds like the refrigerator wasn’t working.
ETA: You later confirmed this.
And this one sounds like the freezer worked, but not the refrigerator.
They’ve been doing that at one of the stores I patronize for 3 or 4 months now. At first, the bulk food section was completely empty. After about a month, they put stuff out but already in plastic bags with the opening sealed by tape and the bin number on a label taped to the bag. I had to show one of the cashiers where the number the first time, because it was no longer on the twist tie like it used to be. I think the idea was to prevent transmission via the scoop.
I did order once from them, but it was expensive. Right now it states they are unavailable. Boo hoo!
if you ever observe people when they scoop or eat at buffet, it is truly frightening. And kids helping themselves, too, that is also frightening. Covid smiles with glee at such things. I am glad for an end to buffets, nice as they are. The bulk foods I miss, too, but again, Covid loves that…if a virus can love anything. Which I doubt.
Viruses don’t love, but they do thrive on that sort of thing.
Most things are pretty normal here in Houston, but I have noticed that summer fruit has been rather spotty in stores. I’m assuming that’s because because there are issues with getting migrant fruit pickers.
I’m not aware of any cases anywhere of COVID being known to spread through buffet service. I know it seems obvious and intuitive, and kind of “of course it happens!” … but are we quite sure?
Buffets were about the first thing to get shutdown. I doubt that we have any data about them.
For that matter, has there ever been a confirmed case of transmission by touching a contaminated surface? In the wild, I mean? I’m sure they have cultured Covid from surfaces as well as the air, but are there cases anywhere in the world that are proven “She touched that object then later touched her face and that’s why she caught it?”
That’s a great question, silenus.
It also makes me wonder, too, if it’s firmly scientifically established that other illnesses are transmitted via fomites.
Well, we know smallpox spores remain active on clothing and blankets for months if not years. Ask the Native Americans about that.
So far as I’m aware, there were attempts to spread smallpox this way but retrospective analysis seemed to indicate that it wouldn’t have worked.
I read about a case involving probable transmission from elevator buttons a while back. In searching for the story, I found this recent CDC abstract about the case. Extensive contact tracing led the researches back to one building.
“Therefore, we believe A0 was an asymptomatic carrier ( 7 , 8 ) and that B1.1 was infected by contact with surfaces in the elevator in the building where they both lived.”
Thank you! But it still looks like it takes repeat exposures from a surface to transmit. Not just picking up a box of Wheaties someone with Covid has touched.
I think.
Timing is also a factor I think. In the original story I read, the person infected was a young teenager who rode in the elevator shortly after the asymptomatic person. It was thought that she touched the buttons and then touched her face. She then infected her mother and mother’s boyfriend and from there around 71 other people were eventually infected. But no one else in the building was infected from the elevator. So she just happened to touch the virus when it was “fresh” I guess.
How would you distinguish between “transmission from touching the buttons” and “transmission from being in an enclosed space where an infected person had just been breathing” in that situation?
I actually wondered about that. The investigation took place in March, which I believe was before it became well known that the virus was aerosolized and remained in the air for some time. I didn’t see anything mentioned in the article (published June 30) about that possibility but it could be how it happened. I can’t find any follow ups to it.