Lou, my daughter is a nurse at Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie & they are concerned about PPE. If you have some to spare, a local health care provider would likely appreciate getting it.
A few customers appear with some kind of disposable paper masks, or handkerchiefs -- more have gloves -- nothing has been said about precautions for staff beside use hand sanitizer & with no known local cases (of course the store I work at is right on Interstate 80 half way between Chicago & Denver ) too drastic measures of PPE would tend to spread panic. Our store is undergoing a remodel, and the first stage of that was to remove all but four (out of nine) regular check out line & replace them with self-check. Self-check attendants have to wade through that mass of humanity, carts, etc. to deal with glitches & provide customer assistance. The layout does not jibe with "social distance." Sometimes there are two attendants to deal with twelve self-check stations on the "grocery" side of the store, sometimes three or perhaps four around the time to change shifts. There are four self-check units by the other "less used" door, and that set has a single attendant -- I was at that set six hours yesterday.
