Businesses in Southwest Florida take action to protect workers from coronavirus attack. Is it enough?
Laura Layden Andrew Wigdor
It's definitely not business as usual in Southwest Florida — or anywhere.
As the coronavirus continues to spread here and across the country, the businesses that remain open continue to take steps to protect their customers and employees from the highly contagious disease — from retailers to Realtors.
Over the past few weeks, some retailers — big and small — have stepped up their protective efforts in the wake of COVID-19, from installing plexiglass shields at check-out counters to limiting the number of customers who can shop at one time to taking the temperature of employees with infrared thermometers before they start their shift, sending them home if it's too high.
That's on top of the earlier actions many local and national companies took, from putting down floor tape to encourage 6 feet of social distancing and adjusting hours to reduce the risk of exposure to taking more meticulous steps to clean and sanitize their stores, offices and equipment.
More businesses offer only curbside pickup or delivery. Some of that is forced, through government orders, including one by Gov. Ron DeSantis that required all restaurants in Florida to close their dining rooms indefinitely weeks ago.
Food delivery companies, such as Instacart and Postmates, and fast-food restaurants, from McDonald's to Domino's, now offer "contactless" delivery, dropping food off at the door and limiting contact between the drivers and customers. After being criticized for not doing enough amid the coronavirus pandemic, DeSantis issued a mandatory stay-at-home order for the entire state of Florida and closed nonessential businesses, starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday, April 3.
Stores such as Walmart, Target and Publix are considered essential, so their stores remain open, with many new safety policies in place, some of which have been adopted over the past two weeks as the coronavirus crisis has widened and the death toll has risen.
Is it enough?
Are the businesses that remain open doing enough to curb the spread of the disease? Some don't think so.
There have been national reports of walkouts, sickouts and strikes by workers who claimed their employers weren't doing everything they could — and should do — to protect them.
Meanwhile, some customers question whether it's really safe for them to buy groceries, pick up their prescriptions or receive deliveries at home. That includes retiree Rick Struble, who wants to see Publix do more to protect shoppers and employees. He wants to see more of its workers wearing masks and gloves, including its cashiers and anyone else handling fresh produce, meat or seafood.
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On Monday, Struble said he didn't take the receipt from his cashier at Publix because she wasn't wearing gloves — and she didn't have a mask on either, making him doubly nervous. Such a policy shouldn't be hard to implement, he said.
"It could be done very quickly. A president and a board of directors can make a decision like that. It's not like going through Congress," he said.
Everyone, Struble said, should act like they have the disease to protect others. He's doing that by wearing a mask and gloves whenever he shops in a store.
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"In my mind, the expense to them (Publix), given the circumstances, would be minimal," Struble said. "They could get massive amounts of these cloth masks, which wouldn't take away from the healthcare workers whatsoever."
Publix has confirmed employees have tested positive for the virus in multiple counties across Florida, including Miami-Dade, Martin, St. Johns, Pinellas, Palm Beach and Duval.
Safety a "top priority"
In an email, Maria Brous, director of communications for Publix, said the health and well-being of its customers, associates and communities is the company's "top priority."
"We are deeply proud of how our dedicated associates are taking care of our customers and each other through this unprecedented and challenging time," she said. "As we continue to monitor and follow The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidance, we have made the decision to allow our associates the option, unless required by local ordinance, to wear masks and gloves for the duration of this national emergency."
Publix can provide masks and gloves to associates "while inventory is available," Brous said.
"Inventory is already scarce, and we anticipate it to become even more limited in the very near future as existing supplies continue to be reserved for healthcare and medical professionals," she said.
Publix has been "keenly focused on intensive, ongoing protective measures" in all of its stores, following the advice of the CDC and local and state health departments, Brous said. Those measures include: A heightened ongoing disinfection program focusing on high-touch surfaces, from PIN pads to doors, visual reminders of 6 foot spacing via marked lines at registers and adjusted store hours.
Other large retailers, such as Target, have taken similar measures.
Last week, Target announced additional steps to promote safety and social distancing. Those steps include: providing non-surgical face masks and gloves for team members to wear on the job, and monitoring — and limiting when necessary — the number of people inside its stores nationwide.
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Earlier actions include stopping its sale of reusable bags and asking customers that bring them in to bag their own groceries and halting returns and exchanges for at least three weeks.
Walmart has announced more proactive safety measures in the past week too, including limiting the number of customers that can be in a store at once and adding one-way aisles to keep customers farther apart.
The giant retailer has also started taking employees' temperatures and making masks and gloves available to workers who want them.
Workers catching virus
There have been reports of grocery and other retail workers getting sick — and even dying — from the coronavirus. That includes two workers from the same Chicago-area Walmart store who recently lost their lives to the disease, showing just how vulnerable retail workers are to catching the virus.
"We are mourning alongside their families," Walmart said in a statement.
Closer to home, Target recently confirmed an employee at the Coconut Point mall in Estero had the coronavirus. In a company statement, the retailer said its "top priority is the health and safety of our team members and guests, and we're taking a number of steps to move forward."
Some of those steps?
"First, we've communicated directly with the impacted team member, who is in quarantine and following all health department guidelines, and we'll pay them while they're on leave. We've also worked quickly to deep clean and sanitize the store, which is the recommendation of public health experts. We have notified the entire store team and provided them with the appropriate CDC guidance. We'll continue to first and foremost take care of our team and guests," the company stated.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, most American workers will likely experience low or medium exposure risk levels at their job or work sites, but the agency has urged all employers to consider how best to decrease the spread of COVID-19 and lower the impact in their workplace. It's latest guidance can be found online at cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-business-response.html.
Protections spreading
Some local businesses have followed the lead of national ones in their response to the pandemic, while also finding their own ways to deal with the unprecedented disaster.
Last week, Wynn's Market installed plexiglass shields — also known as sneeze guards — at front registers inside its flagship store in downtown Naples.
Like other grocers, the local market has employees at the entrance wiping down shopping carts before they're turned over to customers. More sanitation stations have been added for customers and employees throughout the store and across departments — and cleaning and disinfecting procedures have been heightened across the board.
Once a week ServPro is fogging the store, reaching all departments and all corners of the building, from the sales floor to the administrative offices upstairs. While expensive, Jeff Wynn, a corporate officer for Wynn's Market, said it's effective in killing "99.9% of bacteria and viruses," so it's worth the investment to reassure the company that its employees and customers remains safe.
"Under normal circumstances, companies do it once a quarter," Wynn said. "These aren't normal circumstances so we've decided to do it every week."
Like other grocers, Wynn's has cut its operating hours to reduce exposure to the virus and to give employees more time to restock shelves left bare by panicked shoppers.
"They are like family to us," Wynn said of the market's employees "We've stayed in business this long because of our employees."
Sunshine Ace Hardware, another Wynn family business, has taken its own steps to protect its employees and customers, including reducing its operating hours and enhancing its cleaning practices, said Michael Wynn, company president, in an email.
As for his employees, Wynn said he's proud of his team's ability to source and provide essential products, from paper towels to hand sanitizers, to the local community and local hospitals.
His team is used to responding to community emergencies, such as hurricanes, and it has once again "shined through this current crisis," he said.
"We are practicing social distancing in the stores with markings on the floor, signage, lanyards for our associates, as well as promoting our curbside pickup, online shopping and delivery services," Wynn said.
Like some of the country's largest retailers, some local ones — deemed nonessential — closed their brick-and-mortar stores before the governor mandated it. That includes Chico's FAS and Naples Soap Co., both of which are headquartered in Fort Myers.
On March 17, Chico's announced it would close all of its stores across the United States until March 31, a date it later extended indefinitely.
"Our customers and associates are at the center of our purpose and every decision we make. Our commitment to doing the right thing is more important than ever during this uncertain time," said Bonnie Brooks, the retailer's CEO and president, in a news release announcing the store closures last month.
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Before the announcement, the retailer had already taken many steps to protect its employees, offering remote working arrangements and enhanced safety protocols at distribution centers and corporate offices.
Deanna Wallin, founder and CEO of Naples Soap Co., said she closed stores systematically in three phases across the state, shuttering ones in the riskiest areas first and the last ones a few weeks ago.
"That was for the safety of our staff," she said.
The stores, she said, were "really our heartbeat," but now everything has shifted online and the company has adopted new safety policies to keep the employees who are still working safe, including the ones pushing out online orders at its Fort Myers warehouse, who are doing their best to keep a safe distance from one another.
"We have released about 90 percent of our workforce," Wallin said. "Temporary layoffs is really what we are aiming for. We would love to get everybody back to work as soon as it's safely possible."
Many local companies have required all or most of their employees to work from home to protect them from exposure to the novel coronavirus. That includes Naples-based Chomps, a growing company that sells healthy beef jerky sticks.
Peter Maldonado, a co-founder and CEO of Chomps, said he's leveraging a lot of technology to get things done and stay connected, from Google Hangouts to Zoom.
"We are doing video chats whenever possible," he said.
That includes virtual "happy hours," during which employees catch up with each other and share more about what's going on in their personal lives.
"For us, it's a way for us to adapt to the change, without feeling like we are really skipping a beat," Maldonado said.
Real estate agency John R. Wood Properties, headquartered in Naples, sent its agents and most of its corporate employees home to work remotely weeks ago. "They only pop in occasionally," said Phil Wood, the company's president, in an email.
Agents aren't doing "in person" open houses at all, with some doing them virtually instead, he said.
"As for showing properties, if the buyer, seller, and agent are agreeable, we will show properties, using proper protocols," Wood said.
Those protocols start with a question-and-answer session for everyone involved, asking "standard virus questions like the ER asks if you try to get in," he said.
"We encourage sellers to have masks and hand sanitizer for all parties to use immediately upon entry," Wood said.
Agents must wear gloves and they are the ones who open doors or cabinets during the showing.
"The buyer touches nothing," Wood said.
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Despite the crisis, there are still sales occurring.
"Some people are determined to buy, and some people are determined to sell, and they don't want to wait a couple of months," Wood said.
North Naples medical device manufacturer Arthrex has implemented work-from-home policies for employees who can do so, said company spokeswoman Lisa Gardiner, in an email.
"For production employees and other team members who remain on-site, we have incorporated several new precautionary measures at all locations, including daily temperature screenings for all employees entering an Arthrex facility, regular disinfection of all surfaces, changes to culinary services, travel restrictions and enforcing social distancing guidelines."
On top of that, the company is providing masks to all production employees to use during work hours.
Cutting back
Bill Daubmann, a founder and co-owner of MY Shower Door / D3 Glass, a Fort Myers-based manufacturer, recently closed all of his retail stores, although his business might be seen as essential since it makes shower doors and showers are important to health, especially amid the coronavirus outbreak.
"None of the new construction that we know about is shut down. None. But our business is probably 30% new construction and 70% direct to consumer, direct to home."
The company can still help customers with questions over the phone, but it will only send its employees out in the field for emergencies.
"We are going to have to be very smart about how we conduct business for a while, so we don't spread this, nor open up our employees to the virus," Daubmann said.
For Toni Safford, the owner of Toni Safford Cleaning Services in Fort Myers, entering strangers' homes is a daily ordeal, and she's trying to be extra careful as the virus continues to spread.
To protect themselves and customers, Safford and her six employees are wearing gloves, disinfecting constantly and washing hands frequently.
"We're just like doctors and paramedics and hospitals," she said. "We're trying to give a service that's needed."
Alan Smith, general manager of the Terry Wynter Auto Service Center in Fort Myers, said his auto repair shop is also taking extensive measures to keep his employees and customers safe.
Employees are all trying to maintain at least 10 feet of separation and communicate via text as often as possible. Smith said the shop is also encouraging customers to stay out of the waiting room and employees are swiftly wiping down chairs after people use them.
Other precautions? Using gloves when exchanging cash, not touching credit cards and spraying down delivered auto parts with Lysol.
The shop is also picking up and delivering cars to customers' homes to minimize contact.
"It's lots of extra labor, but you have to be precautionary," Smith said. "You can't have anybody sick because it shuts the whole place down and everybody needs their cars."
Masks and more
Anthony Galloway, general manager of a Naples Jet's Pizza store, said the parent company has been supplying each location with reusable masks, and employees are using gloves.
Galloway's store is disinfecting surfaces after every few customers and closing an hour earlier than normal to provide more cleaning time.
The store is also implementing contactless delivery, like many other restaurants have locally and around the country.
"Down here, a lot of people are older, so we have to be more cautious than other areas," Galloway said. "We know it's temporary."
Molly Havig and Stephanie Zaiser, owners of the healthy pet food market Wholesome Hound in Naples, have made big changes at their store to protect themselves, their employees and their customers. A few weeks ago, they started offering curbside pickup only, no longer allowing customers to walk into the store and encouraging them to instead place their orders by phone or email. They are doing more cleaning than ever.
They bag up orders and place them directly in their customers' trunks, to avoid direct contact.
Still, one of their younger employees is staying away because her parents didn't feel comfortable having her work.
"We continue to pay her and allow her to stay home," Zaiser said. "We let her know that whenever she feels safe and comfortable, we're happy to have her back here working."
Small businesses in survival mode
The epidemic has put many businesses into survival mode, especially the smaller ones, as they anticipate and brace for more disruption in the coming months.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 8.1 points in March to 96.4, the largest monthly decline in the survey's history.
"Small businesses are living through the coronavirus pandemic right now and it's hard to say what the severity of the disruption will be, but we do know they're feeling the urgency," said William Dunkelberg, the NFIB's chief economist, in a news release. "It is vital that these businesses have access to federal funds that are made available through the CARES Act to keep the doors open on Main Street."
While state-specific survey results aren't available, Bill Herrle, the NFIB's executive director for Florida, said: "COVID-19 is impacting businesses everywhere. People are staying home, so sales are down. Our hope is that our small business members will receive the federal funds quickly so they won't have to close their doors for good."
Virtual the new norm for government
Local governments — some of Southwest Florida's largest employers — have taken many steps to protect their employees too, limiting their interaction with the public. Like other governments, Collier County has shifted from a "walk-in" model to a "virtual" model, using the internet, website and telephones to serve area residents.
"While a significant number of Collier County staff members are either self-isolating in their homes or working remotely, Collier County government continues providing all needed services to the community," said Deborah Curry, a county spokeswoman, in an email.
Most county meetings are held virtually and the county is "enhancing and refining its virtual meeting capabilities," she said.
In neighboring Lee County, "countless steps" have been taken in every department to "reduce person-to-person contact in an effort to slow the spread" of the coronavirus, said Tim Engstrom, a county spokesman, in an email.
Those steps include closing beaches and parks, as well as most of its public lobbies, and cutting back on its bus services.