Malls & Orchard Road Saw Large Crowds As People Rush to Buy Christmas Gifts

Here’s a quick question: if you were planning to go to the nearby mall for some quick shopping, and you come across pre-pandemic shopping crowds, what would you do?

Make a u-turn and go home to Shopee? Or take a deep breath and walk into the thronging crowd?

Unfortunately, over the weekend of 19 to 20 Dec 2020, many people chose the latter, which resulted in this.

Malls & Orchard Road Saw Large Crowds As People Rush to Buy Christmas Gifts

On the weekend just before Christmas, many people were spotted at malls and Orchard Road reportedly for some last-minute Christmas present shopping.

Here’s a look at the crowd on 19 Dec 2020:

It’s not just Orchard Road either as VivoCity sees people queuing up to enter the mall:

It’s not just the destinations themselves, even public transport bring you back to pre-pandemic days.

Increased Retail Sales

Along Orchard Road, people were spotted forming queues outside retail shops JD Sports and Muji.

Crowds were also spotted at Daiso holding shopping baskets full of Christmas gifts.

A shopper, who decided against stepping into the store, says it was so crowded it felt like the air-conditioning wasn’t switched on.

Retail staff at Bugis Junction also reported an increase in human traffic and retail sales over the past two weekends.

It was added that, because of the number of people, the safe-distance of 1-metre was hard to enforce.

A sales assistant at the Typo outlet in Bugis said she expects the crowd to remain heavy. After all, Chinese New Year and the reopening of schools is coming up.

Some Shoppers Turned Off; Others Fine With Crowds

The shopper who said she decided against walking into Daiso due to the crowd wasn’t the only one.

Another shopper who took her three-year-old with her to brave the crowds because of the slow delivery of online orders during this festive season said she has had enough of the crowd and will leave with her child “right after this”.

Several patrons interviewed by ST admitted to feeling uneasy with the level of people present.

“It’s very busy in the mall, it’s scary to see people going out like there’s (no pandemic).

“You don’t know who could be a carrier, and there are so many people around, you could end up being too close to someone and come into contact with (a carrier).”

“It seems like people are behaving as if we are already in phase three.”

Others, however, felt that there are many reasons to be out and that Singapore is entering Phase 3 soon.

Landlease Group, the managing agent of shopping malls like JEM and 313, said that they’ll “carry out an enhanced cleaning regime and implement crowd management measures”.

The Singapore government has also pledged to deploy more Safe Distancing Ambassadors (SDA) on the ground to work with retailers on crowd control.

Before PM Lee went on leave, he gave a speech on 14 Dec 2020 to announce the date of Singapore entering Phase 3.

Then, he had also asked for people not to relax, or “imagine that the problem is gone”.

Meanwhile, clinics are now preparing more Covid-19 tests as Phase 3 is set to begin in a week’s time.

You can read more about it here.

Featured Image: Facebook