Consumer Protection Society calls for scrapping of weekend lockdowns

AMMAN — The Consumer Protection Society (CPS) on Tuesday demanded that the two-day comprehensive lockdown on the weekends either be cancelled or reduced to one day.

In a statement shared with The Jordan Times, the society criticised the way people crowd markets few days before the enforcement of lockdown to buy their needs, which made the price of some commodities increase, especially fruit and vegetables.

The society, in the days before the last lockdown, conducted field visits to some markets to monitor prices and the type of commodities sold in the markets, and found out that people buy foodstuffs excessively enough for an entire week, disregarding expiration dates nor commitment to COVID-19 public health standards, CPS President Muhammad Obeidat said in the statement.

“At the Consumer Protection Society, we support the government’s measures that aim to safeguard the public’s health, but people’s unjustified crowdedness to buy large amounts of food seems to ruin the benefits of the two-day lockdown,” Obeidat said.

He added that people’s crowding of markets will only make the infections hike further as many people come in contact with each other, and many test positive for COVID-19 yet are asymptomatic. 

As for consumer behaviour, Obeidat said that only those with experience in psychology and sociology understand how to tackle such behaviour, noting that “it is strange for members of the National Anti-Pandemic Committee to discuss these matters without knowledge in the field.”

“There needs to be a specialised scientific behavioural study supervised by experts in the field, which measure the reaction and behaviour of citizens to come up with ways to instill peacefulness and reassurance within them,” he added.

Obeidat urged the concerned entities and the government to work on cancelling the comprehensive lockdown or reducing it to one day to prevent crowding, and thereby curbing the spread and ensuring that there are no hikes in prices due to increased demand on commodities.