Starbucks warns of changes ahead as coronavirus panic accelerates

You could see coronavirus-related changes at your favorite Starbucks in the coming days and weeks - assuming American businesses remain open that long. Shortly after the Italian government shuttered all of that nation's businesses besides grocery stores and banks, and the governor of New York called in the National Guard to oversee a coronavirus "containment zone" in New Rochelle, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson emailed a personal letter to customers.

The coffee chain recently admitted what I said all along - that refilling dirty cups brought in by customers, and having them handled by the same people preparing your drinks, is unsanitary and a heightened risk to spread disease like the coronavirus - and axed that disgusting policy for now. Now Starbucks may go further. Johnson said that, based on the rapidly evolving situation, you might find your neighborhood Starbucks store only serving customers by delivery and mobile pick-up orders.

Stores that remain fully open could limit the number of customers seated inside, to facilitate "social distance" protocols. If the store has a drive-thru, that might alternatively be the only way to make an order. In the worst-case scenario, Johnson wrote, "we will close a store if we feel it is in the best interest of our customers and partners, or if we are directed to do so by government authorities. In any such situation, we expect store disruption to be temporary."

Johnson also added that the company is also watching out for its employees. Starbucks is now expanding catastrophe pay to cover employees who must miss work due to contraction of, or exposure to, covid-19.

MoCo Humane Society has urgent need for hard-to-find items in coronavirus panic buying

Rocky and his fellow adoptable friends at the Montgomery County Humane Society in Rockville need your help. Humans have cleared the shelves of hand sanitizer, hand soap, bleach, Clorox wipes, toilet paper and wet and dry puppy food in coronavirus-related shopping. The society is "urgently" asking residents who can donate these supplies, along with sheets and blankets, to bring them to their headquarters at 601 S. Stonestreet Avenue, Rockville, MD 20850 between 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM seven days a week.

Target now rationing coronavirus items

Target has begun rationing items high in demand by customers during the coronavirus outbreak. Products like disinfecting wipes, paper goods and bottled water have been flying off shelves nationwide since Americans began coming down with the covid-19 virus. The announcement was buried within a longer statement regarding new cleaning procedures for stores, and other strategies the big box retailer is implementing to reduce the spread of the virus.

Other retailers have also begun rationing supplies they say consumers are hoarding, including Wegmans and Kroger. But Target's biggest rival, Walmart, has yet to announce it will ration goods.

Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote that stores are adding paid hours to allow employees to clean surfaces and equipment like check-outs more frequently. Touchscreens and check-out surfaces will be cleaned every 30 minutes, Cornell promised. They have temporarily suspended food sampling in stores, and are staffing up to meet greater demand for curbside pick-up. Target is also reducing all non-essential corporate and employee travel.

4 Montgomery County coronavirus cases confirmed, as businesses adjust to new abnormal

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in the White House
Situation Room with Vice-President Mike Pence

MCPS knocks down rumor of

Richard Montgomery HS student

testing positive for covid-19 as

Hogan warns seniors: "stay home"

The number of Montgomery County residents exposed to the coronavirus is steadily growing, but the actual number of confirmed cases has so far remained small. Four MoCo residents have tested positive for covid-19 so far. While that leads the state by far, there are now single cases in Harford and Prince George's counties as well.

Giant makes a delivery at
The Chase condos in Bethesda

Montgomery County retailers have already seen traffic falling since the first county residents tested positive for coronavirus. Residents and businesses alike are now adapting to the new abnormal of a society in pandemic crisis. Grocery stores are emphasizing their curbside pickup and delivery services, for example. Drug stores like CVS Pharmacy at 7809 Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Bethesda, 11190 Veirs Mill Road in Wheaton, 15600 Columbia Pike in Burtonsville, and at Rockville Town Square and 20 Upper Rock Circle in Rockville, offer drive-thru prescription pick-up.

Anglo Dutch Pools & Toys in the Westwood Shopping Center in Bethesda says it is disinfecting surfaces inside the store throughout the day, and keeping hand sanitizer at the counter. For customers who are staying indoors, Anglo Dutch is now offering to bring orders out to customers' cars, in addition to its existing in-store pickup and online delivery options.

Rumors continue to plague Montgomery County Public Schools on social media during the outbreak. Ongoing speculation over potential school closures has even included specific dates, all of which have been smacked down by MCPS, which has stated schools will remain open at this time. One new online rumor about a Richard Montgomery High School student testing positive for covid-19 is also fake news. "We are deeply disappointed that someone would create and distribute misinformation about such an important issue.," RMHS Principal Damon Monteleone said Monday.

While Rockville is the only county "hot spot" for the virus identified by elected officials, only by virtue of an early coronavirus patient who visited and exposed many at the Villages at Rockville retirement community, the city's large Asian community has made those who were pointing discriminatory fingers early on look rather foolish. Not only have none of the county's cases so far been related to China, but there have been no outbreaks at all in our Asian community. As for people claiming coronavirus is a Chinese bioweapon: while the virus could well be man-made, it almost certainly was not engineered by China. It has caused massive damage to the Chinese economy, which was already reeling from its first downturn and contraction in decades under President Trump's trade and tariff policies. Such an outcome is the last thing Chinese leaders would have sought at this time.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan yesterday advised residents over 60, or with compromised immune or respiratory systems, to "stay home as much as possible to avoid large crowds and gatherings"  They are at "a significantly higher risk of contracting the disease with morbidity and mortality rates that are three-to-five times higher," Hogan said. The governor announced he is putting nursing homes on high alert statewide to monitor coronavirus symptoms in patients and staff. Hogan is also assembling a "coronavirus response team," comprised of health and emergency management experts.

Republican Hogan gave Maryland a seat at the table in the GOP White House - literally. The governor was seated at Vice-President Mike Pence's left hand in the Situation Room, as Pence briefed the nation's state leaders on the coronavirus response. While Hogan has feuded with Trump, he and former Indiana governor and GOP peer Pence have a better working relationship, which bodes well for Maryland getting federal coronavirus aid priority. But given the bleak pandemic picture being painted by some, Pence might want to have coffee with former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who could tell him of the political pitfalls of being made the public face of a challenge like this.

Top photo: Andrea Hanks/The White House

CORE closes at Montgomery Mall, Victoria's Secret moving

CORE is no more

Upscale urban apparel retailer CORE continues its on-again, off-again relationship with Westfield Montgomery Mall. After a two-year run from 2015-2017, the store closed, only to return last March on Level 1 in the Nordstrom wing. But Sunday, CORE had closed again after exactly one year. There had been signs over the last week that they were shutting down, but now it's official.

Victoria's Secret is on the move

Victoria's Secret and former CEO Les Wexner indeed have their share of secrets. We might be on to their destination in their move at Montgomery Mall, however. There are "signs" that a sign is being installed over a Level 1 space recently vacated by a furniture store.

If only the Les Wexner-Jeffrey Epstein
story was this easy to figure out

New coronavirus case in Montgomery County as retail traffic falls over virus fears

Rockville students exposed

to covid-19, boosting calls

for MCPS to close schools;

MoCo spooked by mysterious

haze in the sky Sunday

Foot traffic at Montgomery County retail centers has fallen significantly since the jurisdiction's first coronavirus cases were announced late last week. Even before a fourth MoCo covid-19 case was confirmed Sunday by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a spot check of malls and retail properties across the county found lower numbers of shoppers out and about.

Google's live foot traffic measurement
confirmed anecdotal observations of
smaller crowds at MoCo retail centers
since coronavirus panic began

Anecdotal observations of smaller crowds were confirmed using Google's live measurement of foot traffic Sunday. Google's stats (live numbers indicated by red bar) showed foot traffic notably below average at Westfield Montgomery Mall, Bethesda Row, Ellsworth Place, Milestone Shopping Center and Rio Lakefront, to name just a few. The numbers were down even as the area experienced good weather and a temperature over 60 degrees.

Montgomery Mall was "not too busy,"
Google live traffic count declared Sunday;
the red meter shows traffic down more
than a third from usual around 2:00 PM

If fewer residents are putting themselves into public gathering places, they're also increasingly concerned about their children's exposure to coronavirus in the human petri dish network known as school. As rumors surged of a long-term closure starting Monday, Montgomery County Public Schools sent out messages dismissing them, emphasizing that schools will be open as usual Monday.

Google showing foot traffic down
at Bethesda Row Sunday

But it's too late for students at Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville. Several students there volunteer at The Villages at Rockville retirement community, the only confirmed MoCo location any of the county's coronavirus patients visited that officials will publicly discuss. Parents there are expressing concern about the potential further exposure of other students if Frost holds classes today. MCPS insists classes are going forward.

One very smart publisher got this
timely magazine onto racks this weekend;
with the U.S. stupidly allowing travelers
exposed to coronavirus to reenter the country
without 14-day quarantine, it's a must read

According to Fox 5, Thomas Wootton High School students may have been exposed as well. Wootton parents have been notified by MCPS and the County Health Department about exposure, the station reports, but did not specify if it was related to Wootton students also having volunteered at the Villages.

Toilet paper panic is not limited to
Montgomery County amid coronavirus,
a scan of YouTube finds

As coronavirus panic continues to intensify, essential items continue to fly off of grocery and drug store shelves countywide. A single 3-pack of Puffs tissues was the only paper good left on the shelves at the Safeway at 5000 Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda late Sunday. Trucks are still delivering, however, as the Westwood Giant in Bethesda had plenty of paper goods on their previously-stripped shelves.

Mysterious haze over
Montgomery County Sunday

The stress of coronavirus had residents on edge when a mysterious haze descended over large areas of the county yesterday afternoon. Was the Deep State spraying us all with coronavirus from high-altitude aircraft? Well, it was the federal government creating the haze. But they told the public it was the U.S. Forest Service conducting a controlled burn near Quantico in Virginia. As residents rushed back to their homes with armfuls of Charmin to continue their Netflix binge, Quantico must have seemed suspiciously far from Bethesda.

Montgomery County Ride On disinfecting buses for coronavirus

Montgomery County's Ride On bus service is trying to get in front of a potential loss of ridership due to fears over the novel coronavirus. Three MoCo residents have tested positive for covid-19 so far; officials have not yet informed the public as to whether any of the three rode public transportation before their current quarantine status. Ride On says they are disinfecting all buses nightly for coronavirus, including fareboxes, poles and even the driver's steering wheel. The transit service says they are using a "concentrated, multi-purpose, hospital grade, germicidal detergent, antiviral solution."

On Saturday, the first cases of coronavirus in the District and Virginia were reported. Maryland and Montgomery County officials have yet to offer any further information on where the three MoCo patients may have traveled while infected with coronavirus after returning from their cruise in Egypt. Of course, while it will certainly help to clean the buses in any case, there will still be the issue of riding in close quarters on buses as the outbreak spreads. Coughs and sneezes are one of the leading ways the virus is spread.