Cape Town - The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the previously mundane task of going to the supermarket or even collecting a grant into a nerve-wracking ordeal for many who are wary of catching the coronavirus.
During a recent digital news conference with Premier Alan Winde, Head of Health for the Western Cape Dr Keith Cloete said: “A pattern that has emerged over the last week is that a lot of our cases have been spread through supermarkets. There are cases of people getting sick in the workplace and these are essential workers.”
Cloete said: “This has attuned us to the fact that gathering in any place, and in this instance, supermarkets, has become a source of spreading the virus.”
Cloete and members of the provincial health team took it upon themselves to visit a number of supermarkets to speak to owners, managers and staff, in a bid to formulate guidelines for what to do in the case of an outbreak at one of the stores.
“To be fair to supermarkets, we need to engage them and talk them through the protocol,” said Cloete.
Cloete said: “We’ve followed up every single case to every supermarket and where it was needed, the supermarkets had to close for a deep clean and a reiteration of their practices and processes.”
Without naming names, Cloete said: “We’ve learnt a lot from the three or four stores where we’ve been in terms of the process of having to close down, clean the palace, screen everyone and make sure the place is safe to reopen for trade.”
Cloete laid out the protocols to be used in a case where supermarket staff test positive for the virus: “We have specific protocols and specific systems to be followed when there’s a positive case in a workplace.”
First thing you need to do, and this is for anyone who was in contact with that person - the positive person needs to self-isolate and everyone who is in contact with him needs to be quarantined.
Because they were in the workplace and work surfaces were involved, you must suspend activities for a period of time to clean all the surface and ensure you have a clean environment for unaffected people to resume work.
Reached for comment, Pick n Pay the second largest supermarket chain store in South Africa said: “Should a staff member test positive for coronavirus, we immediately trace staff who have been in close contact and send them home to self-quarantine. We also temporarily close the store to deep clean and sanitize the entire store. As a precaution, staff who were not in close contact with the staff member are screened.
“Our prevention measures in-store include transparent Perspex screens at all till points. We are also making non-surgical face masks available to front-line staff, following new guidance from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health,” the retail store said.
“Expert advice is that frequent and proper hand-washing is still the most effective measure against the virus, and our staff are required to sanitise or wash their hands throughout the day. We have also made hand sanitisers readily available for all staff and customers in stores.
“We also have clear distancing policies in all our stores. This includes floor markers and asking customers to queue and shop with a trolley so that safe physical distancing can be maintained at all times. We are also limiting the number of people in store if required and this will be determined by each store and their size.”
Shoprite, which positions itself as Africa’s largest food retailer said: “Various measures have been put in place including daily temperature testing when employees arrive at work; mobile clinics have been dispatched for referrals; plastic face shields rolled out to employees; and stringent hygiene and sanitising protocols remain in place across all our operations.”
“Those with high temperatures will visit the Group’s mobile clinics for a consultation and, if necessary, will be referred for further testing. Employees of merchandising, security and cleaning companies will also undergo temperature scanning. Employees face shields are sanitised on the hour and at all till points staff also sanitise till surfaces, including pin pads, and their own hands,” Shoprite said.
“When an employee from one of our stores tests positive for Covid-19, the store is closed immediately and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the Department of Health is informed. A professional decontamination company is brought in to sanitize and deep clean the store and the store will be reopened in consultation with the Provincial Department of Health.
“An employee screening programme supported by the company’s mobile clinic is immediately put into place and those staff members who had close contact with the infected person are required to self-quarantine for 14 days.”
@MwangiGithahu
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za