Coronavirus chaos continues at NYC grocery stores

Fearful of the swiftly spreading coronavirus, New Yorkers — or their nannies — lined up in the rain outside supermarkets and mega-stores Friday morning to scour shelves for food and other supplies.

At the Upper West Side Trader Joe’s on West 72nd Street near Broadway, the line stretched down the block just as the doors opened at 8 a.m.

“At 7 o’clock, there was already a full line,” said one employee who opens the store and arrives at 5 a.m. “On a normal day, it’s packed, but they were here early today. It’s raining bruh, what are they doing?”

Inside, the store was mostly well-stocked, aside from parts of the frozen food section that were starting to empty out.

“Our customers are weird,” he said. “They’re doing the shopping for the virus, but they’re not buying anything for [the] long term. We’re good on canned goods and sardines, but people are buying everything that won’t last till tomorrow. It’s a lot of frozen foods, juices, vegetables.”

Shopper Florence Alexander, a nanny, said she was picking up food for the family she works for.

“I’m very stressed out about it,” she said. “Things are out of stock and I’m worried. I wouldn’t even be in line if it wasn’t for the coronavirus. Everyone is here because they are scared.”

A man standing outside in the rain, who declined to give his name, said he was at the store because his “fiancée told me I had to.”

“It is foolishly cautious,” he said. “We’re going to take precaution and stick around the apartment more [instead of] being outside in general, so why not have more food?”

“We’re here for the essentials,” he added. “I understand the toilet paper thing. People need to wipe their ass, but I think people are confused and they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

At a Target in New Springville Staten Island, shelves that once held toilet paper, other paper products and cleaning products were completely wiped bare.

Dozens of people looked worn-out as they held umbrellas and lined up behind shopping carts outside the Costco at 39th Street and Third Avenue in Sunset Park.

Fears continued underground on Friday morning, where a usually packed Manhattan-bound L train car only held a handful of commuters.

Back on the Upper West Side, a woman named Nora joked that “we all need organic food when we’re about to die.”

She continued: “I never would’ve thought anyone would have come to Trader Joe’s for the end of days.”