Apple Stores is dropping its mask mandate for customers for the second time around, at least over 100 locations. It comes with the positive development with the COVID-19 cases and vaccinations in these numerous areas.
People wearing face masks look at a cellphone outside an Apple store during a May Day holiday in Shanghai on May 1, 2020. - With optimism and a heavy dose of caution, millions of Chinese hit the road or visited newly re-opened tourist sites on May 1 for an extended national holiday in a post-coronavirus confidence test.
It is to note that Apple Stores previously stopped requiring its customers to wear face masks when entering the retail stores as long as they are vaccinated.
However, with the raging threat of COVID in the face of its more transmissible variant, the Delta strain, the iPhone maker decided to backtrack its decision. It required all of its customers to wear the mask again in July.
Apple Stores Drop Mask Mandate for Customers
This time around, as per the report by Bloomberg, Apple issued an internal memo to its employees, announcing that the mask requirements are bidding farewell in some of its retail stores in the US.
The memo further attributed the latest move of the Cupertino giant to both the rise in vaccination rates in these locations where their stores are based, alongside the declining trend of new and active COVID-19 cases.
The memo obtained by Bloomberg said that Apple's team "have determined it's safe to update our guidance on masks for customers in your store."
That said, customers of Apple's retail stores in more than 100 of its total 270 locations in the US could now enter without needing to cover their faces with masks.
Apple Stores located in areas like Florida, New York, Louisiana, Connecticut, California, and New Jersey are dropping the mask mandate for its customers.
On top of that, Apple also does not require its visitors to show any proof of vaccination, according to the news story of MacRumors.
As such, the Cupertino tech giant is not only dropping the mask mandate for vaccinated visitors. Unjabbed folks could also enter Apple Stores without wearing any face masks.
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Some Apple Stores Still Require Masks
However, there are still some locations in the US that require people to wear their face masks as a protection against the transmission of COVID-19, such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.
That said, Apple Stores in the said areas will still follow the local mask mandate until any changes occur.
Workers wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) of a face mask and gloves as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, clean and prepare display surfaces inside the Apple store on Oxford Street in central London on June 11, 2020, as non-essential shops prepare to re-open on June 15. - Britain's current guidelines on social distancing remain at two metres (2M), but business leaders and some politicians are on Thursday calling for it to be reduced to one (1M), or one-and-a-half (1.5M) metres. All non-essential shops in England have been told they could re-open from June 15, as long as they comply with health and safety guidelines.
The Cupertino giant hinted that easing mask mandate is still not a permanent rule after it bare plans of adjusting it depending on the local COVID data.
Although customers are no longer required to wear any masks inside Apple Stores, employees of the latter will still have to wear masks on their faces.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Teejay Boris
