Chris Wardwell sanitizes a credit card machine and the conveyor belt on Thursday after serving a customer at Wedge Community Co-op in Minneapolis. To curb the spread of COVID-19, Wedge Community Co-op workers are wearing gloves and sanitizing credit card machine and the conveyor belt after each customer. Most Minnesotans have been told to stay home from their jobs to help slow the spread of coronavirus, but not Adam Evenstad. He runs the meat department at the Festival Foods store in Lexington, near Lino Lakes. Grocery stores are one of the few places people still gather in large numbers — now that so many restaurants, bars and other businesses have been ordered closed, except for takeout orders — and Evenstad acknowledges his job causes him some worries. “I think it would be disingenuous to say that we don’t all face a little heightened anxiety just because we deal with the public to the degree that we do,” he said. At least four grocery store employees across the country have died from COVID-19, according to press reports, and Walmart faces a lawsuit alleging the company didn’t do enough to protect its workers. Minnesota grocers have deployed plastic screens between customers and cashiers, equipped employees with gloves, hand sanitizer and face masks, marked floors to show customers where to stand, and limited how many shoppers can be in a store. Evenstad said his employer is providing store workers with shields, hand sanitizers and other protections against the virus. And customers are helping, too, he said. “We’re definitely seeing a lot more people wearing masks when they come in. We really appreciate that,” Evenstad said. “It’s in no way uncomfortable because we understand that that’s going to help us as much as the person wearing the mask.” At one of the Cub Foods locations in White Bear Lake, Rhonda Dooley, who runs the floral department, agrees that shoppers are helping, but not all, she said. “So, they’re looking on their phone for a product and they’ll pretty much shove the phone right in our face and say, ‘hey, where is this product?’ […]
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