The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

really helpful to know I wasn’t alone,”

Norrington said. The group and others

like it became an important part of her

daily life and recovery. Members talked

to doctors, swapped details on symp-

toms and tracked treatments together

to find out what was making things

better or worse. Like many Facebook

users, Norrington realized that quit-

ting the world’s largest social network

isn’t as easy as hitting a delete button,

especially when you’re part of its online

communities. It’s hard to persuade

people to leave, to learn a new tool and

to re-create the ease of gathering such a

large variety of people. Of the 2.74 bil-

lion users around the world who check

Facebook at least once a month, two-

thirds use the Groups feature at least

SEE FACEBOOK ON G4

B

efore the pandemic, An-

drea Norrington barely

checked Facebook. A lec-

turer in Letchworth, Eng-

land, she was concerned

about how the company had let misin-

formation on Brexit spread unchecked

and was seriously thinking about quit-

ting altogether. ¶ Then at the end of

March, Norrington came down with

covid-19. When she was still ill after

two weeks, she started scouring the

Internet for information about other

people who weren’t getting better.

That’s when she found an early Face-

book group for covid long-haulers —

people who still have symptoms of the

disease after a month. ¶ “When I first

started there weren’t too many mem-

bers, just a couple thousand, but it was

BY HEATHER KELLY

THE WEEK
As of Friday at 5 p.m. ○

DOW 29,263.48

216.33, 0.7% ○

NASDAQ 11,854.97

25.68, 0.2% ○

S&P 500 3,557.54

27.61, 0.8% ○

GOLD $1,878.20

$8.00, 0.4% ○

CRUDE OIL $42.15

$2.02, 5.0% ○

10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD 0.82%

8.2% change

CURRENCIES

$1=103.82 Y EN, 0.84 EUROS

BUSINESS

Raising the green to

save the ocean blue. G5

COLOR OF MONEY

Not just a storefront:

Black businesses. G2

WORK ADVICE

For this bad boss, ’soft

coup’ is best option. G2

Why it’s easy

to hate Facebook

but hard to leave

Community-building Groups feature keeps many aboard

despite disapproval of the social media giant’s conduct

JESSE ZHANG FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

icked about widespread shortag-

es now that they’ve spent months

simplifying their supply chains,

adding shelves and workers to

fulfillment centers, and taking

other measures to counter panic-

buying.

However, they don’t rule out

the prospect of price spikes or

local or temporary shortages due

to transport bottlenecks.

“We saw a major demand

spike in March and April, and

we’re certainly seeing another

wave now as case numbers crest

again across the country,” says

Nick Green, chief executive of

Thrive Market, an online grocer

that specializes in organic food

and natural products. “This time

SEE FOOD SHORTAGE ON G4

they do not expect a return to the

panicked hoarding and empty

shelves of the spring.

“I’m not going to be a Pollyan-

na and say things are perfect,”

says Geoff Freeman, chief execu-

tive of the trade group Consumer

Brands Association. “But we are

fundamentally in a different

place than we were in March and

April. Even retailers rationing is

a demonstration of lessons

learned. The psychology of emp-

ty shelves causes a vicious cycle.”

Grocery chains say they were

too slow to place limits on high-

demand products early on and

are trying to prevent hoarding so

there isn’t another round of

shortages. Retailers and manu-

facturers say they’re less pan-

BY LAURA REILEY

AND ABHA BHATTARAI

Consumers are panic-buying
key items again as the coronavi-
rus surges across the country —
paper towels, disinfecting wipes,
baking mixes and wine — but
this time around, grocery chains
and food manufacturers say they
will be able to meet America’s
urge to hoard and keep supply
chains moving, even during the
holiday season.
While Kroger, Giant, Target
and other grocery chains have
reinstated limits on high-de-
mand items such as paper goods
and disinfecting wipes, causing
anxiety among shoppers, retail-
ers and supply chain experts say

Retailers ready for panic-buying

Stores apply lessons learned this spring to counter hoarding, empty shelves

KLMNO

BusineSS

AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020. SECTION G

technology works — but so far

isn’t helping very many

Americans. In August, I wrote

about the first of these state-

sponsored alerts, Virginia’s

Covidwise app. In the three

months since, only 488 people

have used the state’s app to send

alerts about a positive diagnosis

to others.

The alerts use software built

by Apple and Google into

iPhones and Android devices to

detect when people (or the

phones they’re holding) get into

close contact with each other.

That might sound like a privacy

invasion, but they figured out

how to track encounters

between people in a way that’s

anonymous — and doesn’t store

SEE APPS ON G3

Here’s a phone

alert you wouldn’t

want to miss: “You

have likely been

exposed.”

The coronavirus

surge is upon us,

and your phone

might be able

to help. About 100 million

Americans now have the ability

to get pop-up notifications from

local health authorities when

they’ve personally spent time

near someone who later tested

positive for the coronavirus.

But exposure notifications

only work if you and the people

around you turn them on. Yes,

you!

There’s early evidence this

anonymous smartphone

A covid-fighting tool is buried

in your phone. Time to use it.

Geoffrey

A. Fowler