Thanks as always to The Other McCain, Bacon Time, Pirate’s Cove and Whores and Ale for the Rule Five links!
So, Walmart and some other national chains are quietly dropping their mask mandates after the latest CDC guidance. Excerpt:
Walmart, Costco and Trader Joe’s are among the stores allowing both customers and workers to enter the store maskless if they have received the COVID-19 vaccine. However, they are not requiring proof of vaccination to enter the store without a mask.
Costco will still require masks to be worn in its healthcare sections, which include pharmacy, optical and hearing aid departments.
As Walmart noted in their statement, according to Business Insider, stores are still subject to restrictions put in place by local and state governments.
However, not all store headquarters are on board with the new CDC guidelines. Macy’s, Target and Starbucks are among those that will maintain mask requirements for customers and employees, even if they have been fully vaccinated.
Other stores, such as Kroger and CVS, are not adamant about keeping mask requirements but have yet to lift the mandate.
Up here, outside of Anchorage, the masking thing dropped below 0.5 out of 10 on most folk’s Give-A-Shit-O-Meter some time ago. And now even Anchorage and Juneau (sort of) have lifted their mask mandates.
Yesterday I went in to the Walmart in Wasilla to get my second ‘rona shot, in the hopes one day that international travel opens back up, and almost nobody except the pharmacist who gave me the shot was masked.
Our local grocery story chains, Carrs and Fred Meyer, are owned by Safeway and Kroger, respectively. Both still have “masks required” signs on the entrances. Both still have probably 80% of the customers maskless. Last Friday I went into Fred Meyers for some supplies and about a third of the employees, required to wear masks as a condition of employment, had let their masks slip under their chins.
The theater is coming to an end, folks. The CDC’s new guideline, I think, is not so much the result of further research but rather bowing to the inevitable: People have had enough. And the longer I live in the Great Land, the more I find that Alaskans in general are folks who don’t like people in the forty-eight telling them what to do, and that’s a sentiment I find very refreshing.
