4 UC Berkeley students launch SF Food Friends in response to COVID-19 pandemic

When the Bay Area issued a shelter-in-place order as a response to containing the spread of COVID-19, businesses had to adapt. From a local distillery creating hand sanitizer at cost, to a restaurant offering groceries, to a catering business selling drive-through meals, local businesses have gotten creative to maintain revenue and pay employees.

With experience from past regional disasters and supply-chain disruptions, supermarket chain H-E-B faced the coronavirus chaos with calm preparation, ensuring employees and management act quickly to mitigate their losses - and to keep their shoppers healthy. The chain got a head start by asking suppliers in heavily affected areas - like Italy - for tips and tricks, enforcing early-on social distancing rules, and increasing sick leave for employees.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, school districts are trying a number of approaches to ensure students still have access to free breakfasts and lunches even though they are not coming to school. In some cities, bus drivers are bringing meals to different neighborhoods. The federal government is also working to transfer what would be spent on school lunches to families in the form of food stamps.

To address those that have been specifically impacted by economic crash due to coronavirus and to slow the spread, cities across the United States are enacting comprehensive measures to help. From a halt on all utility shutoffs to releasing inmates who have nearly completed their sentences or are being held pretrial on cash bail, local governments across the nation are looking for ways to address how the pandemic is impacting the most vulnerable.

Schools have closed across the nation to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, but that's left many students without access to meals. To address this, Kanawha County has started to use school buses to transport meals to students, both offering reliable access to meals and eliminating the possibility of spreading the virus by reducing the need for children to stand in lines to receive the meals.

Those over the age of 65 have been instructed to stay at home as much as possible during the coronavirus pandemic, so younger adults are coming together across the nation to help deliver this population essentials. Between Facebook, Nextdoor, and basic spreadsheets, communities are finding ways to provide mutual aid by connecting lower-risk neighbors with their more at-risk neighbors.

To help mitigate the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on some of its most vulnerable populations, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is paying otherwise closed restaurants to make food for short-staffed homeless shelters in the area.

Grocery stores across the United States frantically respond to the "panic buying" brought on by fear of the coronavirus quarantine. As Americans rapidly stock up on supplies, grocery stores expand their network of suppliers, working with farmers, restaurant distributors, and others to find creative solutions to the bottleneck problem of keeping food and goods on their shelves.

As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, some grocery stores are designating specific shopping hours for older and immunocompromised residents. This allows shoppers to stock up in a less crowded environment and reduces the risk that hey will get infected.

Many supermarkets spend most days overcrowded and rapidly out of stock due to the coronavirus crisis, so the major grocery retailer in Australia designated the first hour of business to serving seniors and the disabled. Although there's no guarantee that all items will have been restocked, the dedicated time allows this at-risk population to have a better chance at obtaining the necessities.