NEW YORK— When Kroger published its “Sharing What We’ve Learned: A Blueprint for Businesses” to help business create safe working environments in the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. was simultaneously realizing how great an effect the coronavirus was having on life in the country and beginning to look forward to the end of movement and shopping restrictions that made them radically reconsider how they might purchase everything from food to durable goods such as major appliances.