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Online grocery sales are expected to increase more than a quarter this year as the coronavirus blockade prompts more families to shop from home.
Supermarkets have stepped up online operations to cater to millions more shoppers, as fears of catching Covid-19 have fueled demand for vulnerable shoppers, including the elderly, as well as families trying to avoid trips to stores. .
Only Tesco has more than doubled its number of delivery slots, including click and collect, to 1.2 million in six weeks, and Sainsbury’s is on track to increase its number of slots by more than 75% to 600,000 this week. Asda, Morrisons, Iceland and Waitrose have also significantly increased their deliveries.
On Thursday, Waitrose will open a new six-acre warehouse in Enfield, north London, as he prepares to part ways with Ocado, the online grocery specialist who currently sells food from the supermarket. The facility will allow Waitrose to double online grocery deliveries in the capital in September with an additional 13,000 weekly slots.
Infectious disease epidemics behave in different ways, but the 1918 flu pandemic that killed more than 50 million people is considered a key example of a pandemic that occurred in multiple waves, the latter being more severe than the first. It has been replicated, albeit milder, in subsequent influenza pandemics.
How and why multi-wave outbreaks occur, and how subsequent waves of infection can be prevented, has become a staple of epidemiological model studies and pandemic preparedness, which have looked at everything from social behavior and health policy up to vaccination and the accumulation of community immunity. , also known as collective immunity.
Is there evidence that the coronavirus is returning elsewhere?
This is being watched very carefully. Without a vaccine, and without widespread immunity to the new disease, the Singapore experience is raising an alarm, which has seen a sudden resurgence of infections despite being praised for its early management of the outbreak.
Although Singapore instituted a strong contact locating system for its general population, the disease reappeared in tight dormitory accommodation used by thousands of foreign workers with inadequate hygiene facilities and shared dining facilities.
Singapore’s experience, while highly specific, has demonstrated the disease’s ability to reappear in force in places where people are very close and its ability to exploit any weaknesses in established public health regimes to counter it.
What are the experts concerned about?
Conventional wisdom among scientists suggests that second waves of resistant infections occur after treatment and isolation capacity are depleted. In this case, the concern is that the social and political consensus behind the closings is being overtaken by public frustration and the urgent need to reopen economies.
The threat decreases when the population’s susceptibility to the disease falls below a certain threshold or when widespread vaccination is available.
Generally speaking, the proportion of susceptible and immune individuals in a population at the end of a wave determines the potential magnitude of a subsequent wave. The concern at the moment is that with a vaccine still months away, and the actual rate of infection is only guessed, populations worldwide remain highly vulnerable to both the resurgence and subsequent waves.
Peter Beaumont
Thomas Brereton, a retail analyst at research firm GlobalData, suggested the switch to buying from home was unlikely to be reversed even if the government-imposed blockage to prevent the spread of the virus is eased later in the year.
“The online grocery market is now forecast to grow 25.5% in 2020, significantly above the 8.5% previously anticipated,” Brereton said. “In addition to the initial increase in volume demand (around 30% in April), a continued reluctance to venture into stores for the rest of the year will drive growth in the online market over a longer period than in-store.”
The latest prediction came after it emerged that online sales grew to represent 10.2% of the grocery market in the three months to April 19, up from 7% previously, according to market analysts Kantar. Their regular survey found that older shoppers, in particular, had gone online shopping, increasing their spending on online groceries by 94% year-over-year.
Despite rapid growth, supermarkets have admitted that they cannot keep up with even higher demand.
Time is needed to develop the infrastructure to handle home deliveries, including additional vans, staff to pick up food from shelves, or new “dark stores” or warehouses.
Ocado, the online grocery specialist, for example, has struggled to expand his service as it relies on robot-powered facilities that take months or years to build. Supermarkets with brick-and-mortar stores have been able to adapt more quickly by reserving time when supermarkets are closed to pick up online orders or by extending click-and-pick or home delivery services to more outlets.
The effort to meet demand has become more pressing as consumer rights groups and people with disabilities have warned that thousands of people are not getting the help they need during the pandemic.
