Just as a little exercise I went to the site of Jumbo, one of the biggest supermarket chains here. Our region, the most populous, has 52 municipalities. Jumbo only delivers to 25 of them and for 2 it only delivers to specific areas. Other regions have even fewer delivery zones. But the Health Ministry acts like EVERYONE can order online.


Then, of course it's harder for small businesses to set themselves up for delivery and ordering from them is not always easy. During the last quarantine when our car was having problems I ordered by WhatsApp from a guy that sold eggs, dairy and some other basic staples. Another delivered vegetables like that. The egg guy is probably still doing it, but once we were out of quarantine I tried to order from the vegetable guy and he was no longer in that business. Even locating those businesses took research. Then, I had to get them to send me a price list. I'd put my order into an excel to calculate the cost and text it to them, then I had to transfer the money. It wasn't exactly easy, but those were the sorts of options that were available to us.


All of the street fairs where people go to mainly on the weekend to stock up on produce and other items will be shut down. They make most of their money on the weekends. A few of them were being interviewed on the news, and they enumerated the challenges to try to convert to a delivery model. First of all, the street fairs are sort of informal, so they can't even get a permit to be out and about making deliveries during lockdown. Then, they'd need a vehicle, they probably need to hire someone to help out, etc.


Of course, then there are the extra charges, which can be a financial hardship for someone earning minimum wage or on a fixed pension.

I agree that it doesn't seem to be following the science. It doesn't seem like grocery stores and markets are huge infection points. I mean, why is the weekend more dangerous to shop than during the week? Is the virus nicer during the week? It seems like they are completely out of ideas and, probably, trying to distract people from the fact that the vaccine doesn't seem to be helping. Everyone's focusing energy and outrage on the new restrictions instead. ICUs are close to full in most places and deaths aren't coming down. We recently had a day of over 200 deaths, which is the first time I remember such a high number. Every time the government announces another nonsensical policy, they lose more credibility and more people think, "what's the point of following the stupid rules?"


People are completely mocking the government in the comments to news articles and on social media. There are memes of cowboys (in full cowboy dress) on their horses with UberEats backpacks on their backs, saying "this is how we do delivery out in the country."

Oh, and now no one is sure what to do about parents who share custody and need to transfer the kids between households. They won't be able to this coming weekend. If they switch to during the week, they use up one of their two weekly permits each time. And, of course, the government may backpedal and keep the stricter weekend restrictions, since they change their minds all the time.