Corona: Special shopping hours for pensioners and older citizens? What has long been true in other countries

To protect the risk group: supermarkets in countries such as Ireland and Australia are only open to older people at certain times due to the corona crisis. There is no uniform regulation in Germany - individual markets are moving ahead.

• The corona crisis * largely paralyzes public life in Germany .
• The ban on contact * and exit restrictions are considered protective measures to contain the coronavirus *.
• Politicians are now discussing isolating seniors and other risk groups - in other countries this has long been practiced with special shopping times in supermarkets.

Munich - REWE, Lidl, Aldi, Edeka, Penny - Germany's supermarket chains are facing completely new and unknown challenges due to the corona crisis . The employees start their jobs, always at risk of contracting the insidious lung disease Covid-19 at the cash register or on the shelf.

Corona virus in Germany: contact ban - also at Aldi, Edeka, Rewe and Co.

Since there has been a ban on contact with a minimum distance of 1.5 meters between two people across Germany due to the coronavirus pandemic , other images can also be seen on streets and especially in the grocery stores: How citizens try hard to control this distance when passing by, when grasping the Counter and when pushing the shopping cart.

This challenge becomes an almost insurmountable hurdle for older people in particular, if they have not meant it, their difficulties with shopping.

To put it directly: mouth protection, a ban on contact , the danger lurking everywhere - some seniors seem simply overwhelmed in the supermarket. The question arises: must it be?

Corona crisis in Aldi, Lidl, Edeka and Co .: supermarkets with special opening times for seniors and pensioners

In order to protect their risk groups , other countries have long since gone a different route: In Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Norway and Bulgaria, supermarkets are only open to the elderly at certain times, mostly in the early morning.

We've been listening to your feedback and we will be implementing priority shopping hours for the elderly across all 163 Lidl stores in Ireland, 9-11am every day, until further notice.

In Ireland, for example, this applies to Tesco branches, where seniors aged 65 and over can shop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Lidl Ireland, on the other hand, grants older citizens a shopping slot from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. - exclusively! The changes have been in effect since mid-March. And in Germany?

Corona crisis in Germany: Edeka, Rewe, Aldi or Lidl with shopping hours for the elderly?

Individual private supermarkets such as an Edeka franchisee in Stuttgart have responded and are also offering special shopping hours to seniors. But there are no uniform rules. In any case, dealing with the “older people” risk group is obviously a very polarizing issue.

Frankfurt / Main: A man placed three large packs of toilet paper on his walker.

© picture alliance / dpa / Frank Rumpenhorst

Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker (independent) told the Cologne City Gazette that proposals to limit the isolation to the risk group of sick and elderly people were "cynical and wrong".

Reker's Düsseldorf colleague Thomas Geisel (SPD) had previously proposed a change of strategy in combating the pandemic. One should only "isolate the risk group of the elderly" in order to avoid a month-long standstill in economic life.

Protection against the corona virus in Aldi, Lidl, Edeka and Co .: Great Britain speaks about isolation of people over 70

Great Britain, which is overwhelmed by the corona crisis, is already pushing ahead with the isolation of the elderly in order to explicitly protect them from being infected with the dangerous corona virus . People over 70 could be called on to remain in isolation for up to four months, Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a recent interview with Sky News . Drastically.

A look at Italy, which is particularly badly affected, shows that protecting the older population has priority. 80 percent of the dead were over 70 years old, said the president of the national health institute (ISS), Silvio Brusaferro, recently.

Would it be an effective protective measure in Germany to only let seniors, pensioners and other risk groups shop at certain times?

pm with material from dpa

* tz.de and merkur.de are part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network