That seems stupid. Blaming covid, but the stores are already taking precautions, and you can walk in taking appropriate measures to get a new tv, new phone, new series x, etc.
To me this sounds like supply issues.
Online only orders are going to have to fight with bots and I can only imagine its going to go about as well as the first round did.
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/11/05/playstation-5-launch-day-ordering-update/