"It's a bit totalitarian."
That is a bit of an understatement.
Morrisons grocery store in the UK joins the growing list of companies who are going overboard in their enforcement of Covid restrictions. The grocery chain requires masks while shopping in store but they have exemptions for disabled, handicapped, and whoever may need medical exemptions from wearing masks.
However, Morrisons has a system for identifying who is and who is not compelled to wear a mask, and that is by forcing non maskers to wear an identifying marker, in this case a yellow sticker, to show that they are approved to shop maskless.
A yellow sticker? Maybe something like this?
One shopper who was exempt from mask wearing policy politely refused to wear the yellow sticker, saying that it discriminates against people with disabilities. That interaction was captured on video.
Yep. The man said he did not want to wear the sticker, rightly pointing out that it's ridiculous. If anyone wanted to know why he wasn't masking they could just ask him, no need to be called out. "It's a bit totalitarian" the man said.
Oh, but the Covid Karens running security at Morrisons had different ideas.
They called the police on the man, not for breaking any law, but for not following the stores discriminatory and probably illegal practice.
The grocery store did respond to the incident, replying to the tweet above with this PR response.
They don't require yellow stickers, but instead they hand out "sunflower lanyards" which is a much friendlier way of broadcasting that you have a medical or other issue that prevents you from wearing a mask. It's still a discriminatory practice, but at least we are assured it is not required and people can voluntarily participate.
But for real, using any kind of yellow marking to identify people based largely on a disability is pretty bad. Surely the grocery chain can see why this isn't a good look.
But no, it's all done in the name of SCIENCE! It's necessary to stop the spread of the virus. These yellow stickers are the key to stopping the spread. Whatever we can do to fight Covid, we should do. Even when those things make no sense. And if that requires totalitarian control over the actions of each individual, well so be it.
