MASK OFF?

Walmart, Costco, and Trader Joe’s Say Vaccinated Customers No Longer Need to Wear Masks

The move comes after the CDC updated its guidelines, but it was not immediately clear how the retail giants could know whether customers are really vaccinated.

Walmart, Trader Joe’s, and Costco have announced that fully vaccinated customers no longer need to wear masks in stores, CNN reports. The move comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines on Thursday, saying that fully vaccinated people mostly do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing when indoors or outdoors. Some experts have raised concerns about the new guidelines essentially relying on everyone to be truthful about their vaccination status, when there have already been reports of falsified vaccination cards and many people refused to wear masks to begin with. Mark Perrone, who leads the United Food and Commercial Workers' union, criticized the updated CDC guidelines. It “fails to consider how it will impact essential workers who face frequent exposure to individuals who are not vaccinated and refuse to wear masks,” he said.