Experts Reveal Most Dangerous Place in a Grocery Store

A shopper and cashier both wear masks and gloves, and the cashier also has on a plastic visor at the checkout station at Pat's Farms grocery store in Merrick, N.Y., on March 31, 2020. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Cashiers at most grocery stores and big-box retailers are exposed the most to COVID-19, according to health experts.

Brian Brown-Cashdollar, program director at the Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health, told CNN that “workers at the greatest risk are the workers with the most direct contact with other people.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the virus might be spread via “touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.”

“This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus. Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub. Also, routinely clean frequently touched surfaces,” the agency says.

Cashiers, meanwhile, have to touch and scan bags as well as items. They also have to interact with customers all day, some of whom could be infected with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus causes COVID-19.

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, told the network that cashiers perform a similar function as health care workers.

And as a result, cashiers “need N95 masks as much as health care workers,” he told CNN, adding that some U.S. stores should sanitize cash “at some point.”

He believes that all stores also need to give their cashiers face shields because many coronavirus carriers are asymptomatic. In China, stores are sanitizing cash, and the United States “should as well at some point.”