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Comment by RandomBacon | Hacker News Reader

Serious: Are those stickers any better?

I haven't shopped at a store with those arrows, so I haven't seen how well they work, I can only guess...

If someone is standing in the aisle comparing two products, are you going to wait for them so you don't pass them?

If you only need one item and it's in an aisle towards the front of the store, are you going to follow the arrows so you go further towards the back of the store and down an aisle that you didn't need to go down?

Are the arrows going to prevent you from walking through someone else's exhaled air?

It seems more like something to appear doing good than actually doing good.

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> Are the arrows going to prevent you from walking through someone else's exhaled air?

In most aisles, it's almost impossible to maintain your distance from others if people are traveling in both directions, since you're frequently passing closely. If everyone makes a one-way "circuit" around the store, you can maintain pretty large distances.

I think the point stands - the standard 6' / 1.5m guidelines are completely arbitrary and it's likely that droplets remain suspended for some period of time, so regardless of direction, you're certain to encounter potential infectious agents if you're in an aisle within 15-30+ minutes of someone contagious passing through.

Yeah, I was merely responding to the naive "why are there arrows?" part of that. The true story is more complex and probably mostly unknown at this point.

That said, at this point, I'll take the arrows and my six feet, for starters. When I'm in a store, which I've done once in the last six weeks...

They don't have to be followed in every possible instance, but they provide good guidance about what is expected when you see another person, and helps massively reduce the amount of situations where people pass each other going opposite directions. There's obviously no need to respect the arrows if you are grabbing something and going the "wrong way" doesn't put you in close contact with somebody else. By all means jump around lanes.

And yes, wait for the person to move on, don't squeeze past them, that's the whole point.

I have no data but it seems like something that would be helpful.

No way am I waiting on people who are comparing items, nor do I feel the least bit slighted/assaulted when people quite reasonably pass me when I'm comparing items or otherwise doing stationery shopping things in the aisle.

I don't see any evidence that I'm in the minority in my behavior on this point. If you believe there's risk in passing someone, I think you also have to believe that there's risk in standing 6 feet behind them for a needlessly prolonged period of waiting.

> If you believe there's risk in passing someone, I think you also have to believe that there's risk in standing 6 feet behind them for a needlessly prolonged period of waiting.'

There is risk in both things. There's risk being in the same room, typing on the same keypad for payment, risk in being near people outdoors.

So we take calculated measures to reduce the risk. The advice is maintain six feet, but that's not some magic number between risk and no risk.

I don't feel assaulted if somebody passes by me either, but I'm not aiming to voluntarily increase my risk by intentionally causing myself to come close to other people if I can just hang back or go another way. I don't care what the majority of the behavior is, we all have to do what seems reasonable to us.

I'm lucky enough that I can almost completely avoid being in the store at all, or anywhere else that has groups of people, which I do since that's the lower risk approach.

My partner has a respiratory condition, we have elderly relatives that we bring food to, we have to try any practical steps we can do not pass on the disease to other people in our lives, who might have a very bad time or die if they get it.

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