Safe distancing rules have kicked in, making it an offence to sit or stand less than 1m apart from others.

All supermarkets now have floor markers to mark queueing positions for shoppers at check-out counters. However, it is almost impossible to observe this rule along the aisles inside the supermarket.

Most supermarkets have narrow aisles and they are packed with shoppers, especially on weekends.

It is impractical to limit the number of shoppers inside the stores. Long queues will form outside every store at all times of the day. I also dread to think of my usual two-hour grocery shopping trip being turned into a four-hour affair.

In Australia, there are calls for supermarkets to implement one-way aisles as a social distancing measure.

Shoppers are required to follow floor markings that indicate the direction of shoppers' traffic.

I think it is a good measure that should be adopted here.

There should be separate entrances and exits to the supermarkets. No one should be allowed to go in the reverse direction. If a shopper has forgotten to get an item in the aisle he has already passed, he has to exit the supermarket and make his way back in again.

This may not solve the 1m apart requirement, but at least it will stop people walking towards one another, face-to-face to quote Professor Gary Mortimer, a retail expert at an Australian University.

There will also be less chance of people bunching together.

Betty Ho Peck Woon