The COVID-19 pandemic

[ac3r]

Not likely (imo).  From what I've seen, they have been first rate at social distancing.  Far better than supermarkets, in fact.

It's not too concerning to me how customers act, though- I figure that they are there for a few minutes, constantly moving, and many of them could reasonably be expected to barely be ever leaving their homes otherwise. But the employees are there day in, day out for hours on end, interacting with dozens or hundreds of people. They have presumably been trained to do their jobs a certain way, but they seem content to proceed the "wrong way" down an aisle whether a customer could give them space or not.

I think it can be both customers and staff. I've only made 2 trips to Home Depot since they've opened, and each time when I was there I tried to observe how well people were practicing safety. Some people were following the arrows, which is great, but many were not. There were also quite a number of people asking staff members questions, getting far too close to the staff and vice versa (many staff members didn't think to step back). A few had masks, but not the majority. In fact, I noticed more customers wearing them than staff members. I believe that for stores to be allowed to reopen, they should have made masks mandatory for staff and for anyone entering (a few stores are doing this) to shop.

When leaving, I witnessed 3 guys (2 of which had masks, but pulled down their chin) who clearly knew each other. They all got real close, shook each others hands and stood there chatting away fairly close to each other.