Shoppers at Costco in Birmingham were pictured waiting in huge queues. Photographs on social media showed similar scenes at major supermarkets and retailers across England. Non-essential retail stores were also noticeably busier with people enjoying their final outings before their doors shut from Thursday until at least December 2.
Shopper Christy tweeted: “I just panic-bought £100 worth of jumpers in an extremely busy Primark to make sure I had enough for a month.”
Shop assistant Melody Tap pleaded with shoppers to be patient. She said: “Please be kind to us retail workers.
“Shops are busier than normal and we were already struggling with stock.”
Tesco and Morrisons have reintroduced limits on the number of items people can buy while Sainsbury’s said they could not rule it out later.
Kyle Monk, of the British Retail Consortium, argued a recent Sage report showed closing non-essential retail would have a minimal impact on Covid transmission .
