The Atlantic

Grocery Stores Are the Coronavirus Tipping Point

Even one of the last bastions of normal American life could not escape the outbreak.
Source: Sarah Blesene​r / The New York Times / Redux

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

For a couple of weeks now, grocery stores have been one of the only respites from cabin fever. Despite all the lockdowns and social-distancing measures across America, people still need food. In the most restrictive states, the grocery store has become about the last place you can go where life is lived more or less as it previously was.

Except now, not even grocery stores can keep up the facade of normalcy. As many health experts have feared, last week, reports began to trickle in of grocery-store workers coming down with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. A Trader Joe’s employee tested positive. So did, along with two Fred Meyer employees: one in , and one in . A worker at the Columbus Circle and Bryant Park Whole Foods locations in New York, through which thousands of people filter every day, as well.

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