BILLINGS — The Billings WinCo grocery store is limiting the sale of alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, hand soap, latex gloves and face masks as concern over the spread of coronavirus continues to grow, WinCo management confirmed over the phone Sunday.
The Billings store is limiting the sale of those items to four each per family through the end of April.
The limited sale was put in place to stop people from wiping out store shelves, store managers said.
Q2 has also heard reports of other grocery stores in the Billings area selling out of hand sanitizer, toilet paper and water.
Thus far in the United States, there have been about 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 21 deaths from the virus, the majority being in Washington state.
To put the coronavirus numbers in perspective, the state of Montana has seen about 8,500 influenza cases and nine deaths from the flu this season, according to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.
