April 3, 2020, Vancouver, B.C. – As the challenges caused by the COVID-19 outbreak continue to shift, the British Columbia government and Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer (PHO), are taking unprecedented measures to slow the transmission of the disease, including in the retail food and grocery store sector.

Recently, Henry issued an order under the Public Health Act prohibiting the gathering of people in excess of 50 people at a place of which a person is the owner, occupier or operator, or for which they are otherwise responsible. Employers in the retail food and grocery store sector are asking for clarity about what this means for them.

Many retail food and grocery store owners have asked whether or not the PHO’s order prohibiting mass gatherings of 50 or more people applies to them. While this order does not directly apply to the retail food and grocery industry, the spirit of the order should be followed, the government states. This means that, for example, in large grocery stores where it is feasible to have more than 50 people present at one time, it is permissible to do so provided that appropriate physical distancing can be maintained.

Key considerations include:

• Enhancing the premise’s sanitation plan and schedule, and ensuring staff are practising proper hygiene. This includes frequent hand washing, only coughing or sneezing into an elbow, and avoiding touching one’s face;
• Placing hand sanitizer with a minimum of 60 per cent ethyl alcohol in dispensers near doors, pay stations and other high-touch locations for customer and staff use;
• Ensuring washrooms are always well stocked with liquid soap and paper towels, and that warm running water is available;
• Providing clean carry-out bags for purchased food and grocery products; customers should not use their own containers, reusable bags or boxes;
• Posting signs at each checkout indicating that no customer packaging is to be used or placed on check-out counters;
• Ensuring cones or tape markers are in place every two metres to provide customers with visible queues that support physical distancing;
• Using physical queue-line controls, such as crowd control cordons at entrances and in checkout lines outside the stores;
• Do not sell bulk items, except via gravity feed bins or where staff dispense the bulk items;
• Self-isolation can end 14 days after the last contact or return to Canada if you have not developed symptoms; and
• With or without a history of travel, if you have respiratory symptoms that can be managed at home, self-isolate at home for at least 10 days after onset of symptoms. After 10 days, if your temperature is normal and you feel better, you can return to your routine activities.
• Coughing may persist for several weeks, so a cough alone does not mean you need to continue to self-isolate for more than 10 days.

Employers should reassess their work environment every day and keep updated with the information posted on the province’s website at www.gov.bc.ca/COVID19.

Click here for a copy of the guidelines providing guidance to the retail food and grocery store sector.