How Stores’ COVID-19 Policies Affect the Disabled Community

Despite good intentions, grocery stores’ pandemic policies may remain flawed.

By Chandra Char PhD MPH

Previous published in Psychology Today on April 2, 2021 at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/disability-is-diversity/202104/how-stores-covid-19-policies-affect-the-disabled-community

Key points

• During COVID-19, many grocery stores established "senior hours" to make grocery shopping safer for seniors and people with disabilities.

• But because many disabilities are invisible, some individuals who qualify may be turned away, or made to disclose private medical information to strangers.

• People with disabilities face additional challenges when grocery shopping due to the pandemic, such as increased competition for grocery delivery slots.

• Expanding "senior hours," employing personal shoppers, or allowing individuals with disabilities priority access to delivery services could help.

It’s an understatement to say that grocery shopping has become complicated since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The CDC now even provides recommendations for running errands—which include, among others, wearing a mask while grocery shopping and maintaining a 6-feet distance from other shoppers. For high-risk individuals, the CDC recommends being informed about special shopping hours for elderly and high-risk individuals, if available.

The Pros and Cons of “Senior Hours”

In March 2020, many grocery stores—including Target, Walmart, and Trader Joe’s—began having “senior hours” which were intended to allow high-risk groups, including older adults and people with disabilities, to shop before the store opened to the public. Stores often advertised extra cleaning after the store closed, in preparation for the following day. It is possible to hypothesize that the store would be the cleanest during these early shopping hours, but currently, there is no concrete data to support that.

The idea behind “senior hours” was to reduce the risk of exposure to the COVID-19 virus for the most vulnerable groups. Early shopping hours would also theoretically allow high-risk groups to have first access to popular items like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and certain foods.

However, the senior hours would usually occur before the stores would open or be the first hour of operation, generally 7:00 am to 8:00 am. For some people with disabilities, getting to a store during this time could be very challenging. For some, early mornings are when their symptoms are most severe. Additionally, people who rely on public transportation may not be able to get transportation that early in the morning.

Starting in January 2021, all Costco Warehouse stores began allowing frontline workers to shop early too, alongside elderly people and people with disabilities. These early hours are intended to help accommodate the chaotic schedules of frontline workers and allow them access to important and popular items before they sell out.

While many people are in support of this idea, in practice, it may not necessarily be the safest accommodation. First, it increases the number of people eligible to shop at the early hours, potentially increasing crowding in the store and possibly fuel the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Secondly, as the pandemic has progressed, it’s become known that individuals can be asymptomatic but still be infected with COVID-19. Because frontline workers could be carriers for the virus, it could be problematic for high-risk customers who are shopping in the store at the same time and may come in contact with each other. For high-risk customers, this could potentially increase the chance of contracting the COVID-19 virus.

Who Is Qualified for “Senior Hours”?

How do we know if people qualify to shop during the early shopping hours? Of course, when we judge a book by its cover, some characteristics may be more obvious than others. Grey hair may indicate a senior. A person in a wheelchair could clearly be disabled. These are just some examples of some obvious inclusion criteria for entry.

But what about people with invisible disabilities? Those who are immune-compromised, for example, do not necessarily have noticeable conditions. Turning people away from shopping in the early hours based on their appearance alone has a great potential for ableism. Employees may be forced to make assumptions about a person based on their ability to “see” or “not see” how at-risk they are. If a person with a less noticeable condition is turned away from a store, it may force them to disclose their condition to a stranger just to gain entry.

Additionally, people with less noticeable disabilities may receive punishing looks from other shoppers even if let in because they may not obviously possess characteristics that qualify them to shop early. This could lead to an uncomfortable shopping experience.

Additional Challenges of Grocery Shopping While Disabled

People who use wheelchairs cannot simply “jump out of the way” when someone without a mask on is within six feet of them. Additionally, individuals with low vision may be unable to see when someone is within six feet of them in order to safely social distance at a grocery store.

Many people with disabilities were early adopters of grocery delivery or pickup long before the pandemic. When the pandemic began, an influx of delivery or pickup orders from nondisabled people meant that disabled people suddenly had to wait days or weeks for their supplies, and often essential goods were unavailable by the time the order was filled.

How Can Shopping Be Improved for Those with Disabilities?

At this point in the pandemic, we are all doing our best to get the resources we need to survive. That is often significantly more difficult for people with disabilities who may rely on others for their care and services to make that happen.

How can this situation be improved? The group Disability Rights California (DRC) wrote an open letter to grocery store CEOs in March 2020 with two requests. One of these requests was having a checkbox on online delivery systems for high-risk individuals to self-identify at checkout in order to prioritize orders for people with disabilities and qualify them for earlier delivery times. Additionally, the DRC requested that additional staggered shopping hours be added for other CDC-identified high-risk groups, such as immunocompromised.

I recommend an additional strategy for providing greater accessibility to essential goods for people with disabilities: Stores could have personal shoppers available during regular shopping hours. A personal shopper would allow a customer to wait outside while the shopper purchases items from a list. This may be safer and would not require any disclosure of a condition. Additionally, stores could expand and increase the availability of curbside pick-up and delivery. In one sign of progress, 43 states now allow people with disabilities to use their SNAP benefits to pay for groceries ordered online.

In my view, a more equitable approach needs to be taken to make sure that we are allowing everyone to access essential items in the same way. If achieved, equitable grocery policies could benefit people with disabilities long after the pandemic.