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How is your business approaching mask guidance?

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What are the new CDC mask recommendations?

 

On July 27, the CDC updated its indoor mask guidance, driven by the delta variant making up a majority of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. In areas with more than 50 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days — currently more than 60% of all U.S. counties — masks are now recommended, no matter a person’s vaccination status.

 

 

The CDC recommendations for outdoor settings have not changed, with fully vaccinated people not needing to wear a mask outside.

 

Are there new mask guidelines for restaurants, retail, and other industries that are re-opening indoors?

 

The CDC has not made changes to its mask recommendations for workplaces and businesses. While indoors, the CDC still recommends that employees and customers wear masks as much as possible, including at restaurants and bars when not eating or drinking.

 

However, some local governments have implemented new mandates in recent weeks. In Los Angeles county, masks are required indoors no matter your vaccination status except when you are ...

 

  • actively eating or drinking in a specific location (table or counter).
  • alone in a separate room or office.
  • showering or swimming.
  • performing or receiving personal hygiene or personal care services that cannot be done without removing your mask.

 

What options do businesses have moving forward? Can you require masks and vaccinations?

 

These new CDC guidelines do not come with penalties, though business owners should know their options while navigating the latest changes in policies across the country. In places with indoor mask mandates such as Los Angeles and St. Louis, businesses risk facing citations, fines or more serious penalties if they do not enforce those rules with employees and customers. 


Even if a state has banned mask mandates for federal workers, private businesses hold the right to require their own employees to wear masks, as well as any customers who enter the business. Here are some ways to help make your customers feel comfortable.

 

The CDC also recommends a few best practices for managing employees during this time, including:

 

  • Offer flexible, non-punitive sick leave options for employees experiencing side effects after vaccination.
  • Allow time for vaccine confidence to grow and provide support (such as paid leave and transportation assistance) when employees decide to get the vaccine.

 

Additional information can be found here

 

This post is for educational purposes and does not constitute legal, employment, or health advice. For specific advice applicable to your business, please contact a professional.

 

We want to hear from YOU and your business on how you're approaching mask guidance. Please share below! 

️ Isabelle | she/her
Seller Community & Super Seller Program Manager | Square, Inc.
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Super Seller

We always follow CDC recommendations or err on the side of safety. The safety of a staff and customers is the most important thing, especially since our business' mission is to help people in their path to wellbeing. 

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Beta Member

Many of our customers are under 12 years old - 0 kids under 12 have been vaccinated at all. We require masks upon entrance, which we gladly provide. Very little resistance from customers.

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Until yesterday we were allowing vaccinated people to enter without masks.  Today going forwards we are following the new CDC guidelines and requiring all people to wear a mask.  We do provide them at no charge if people don't have one.  Most people have no issue with wearing a mask and most of our local customers pretty much always wear them anyway.

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Super Seller

I leave it up to the customer to decide if they want to wear a mask. Not like I ever have more then 1 or 2 people in the shop at any one time

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We are requiring all customers and staff to wear a mask regardless of their vaccination status. Infection numbers quadrupled in 2 weeks in my county. It's an art center and gallery and most people are ok with it. If not they are welcome to shop online or come in once the pandemic is over. We have signs, hand sanitizer and masks at the front door. Suffering for your art shouldn't include contracting covid.

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Super Seller

We have fully vaccinated staff and encourage people to get vaccinated as the evidence supports even if you get infected while vaccinated you do not spread the virus like an unvaccinated person.

 

We will continue to follow best hygiene practices, but we are going to encourage masks but not require them. Our local government has come out against any new restrictions.

Donnie
Multi-Unit Manager
Order Up Cafe/Tombras Cafe/Riverview Cafe/City County Cafe
Roddy Vending Company, Inc.
www.OrderUpCafe.com

Using Square since July, 2017
Square Super Seller
Square Beta Team

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want." Z.Z.
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wearing masks when inacting with customers, class are not required to waer them they are still at more than 6 ft apart in the classroom (not going to change that anytime soon). more and more people are coming in with the mask on and all is good.

 

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Super Seller

I leave it up to the customer.  No mask required sign on the door, and anything. If they feel more comfortable wearing one, that's completely fine and up to them. 

Dan
Scorpion Coating Plus,LLC
Square Super Seller
Check out Square support center for additional help.
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Super Seller

We’ve been planning for this for some time now.  It has been very obvious that the large pool of the unvaccinated was going to get hit by some mutation, and that COVID was going to wreak havoc on society again.  There was not way we were going to avoid it, and we didn’t.

 

What surprised me a little is that the latest research on Delta shows that even vaccinated people are spreading Delta as easily and quickly as unvaccinated people.  Vaccinated people seem to be overwhelmingly protected from serious disease, thankfully, but they are passing it on rather easily to unvaccinated people.  Unfortunately, that was inevitable given the large COVID breeding pools that exist in our unvaccinated population.  Thankfully, the vaccines protect we who have them from serious Delta sickness.  I’m betting we won’t be so lucky with one of the variants that will be produced by this round of mutations in the unvaccinated COVID breeding factories.

 

Anyway, we started requiring all of our employees to wear masks indoors.  If they choose not to wear a mask at work, then they will be put on indefinite leave until this latest avoidable crisis is past.  We have very close quarters, so it makes sense.  Since we only have walkup window service and outdoor seating, we are leaving the choice of masks up to our guests.  But even our outdoor employees have chosen to wear them in order to make the point that we care about the health of everyone.  This attitude is why they are my employees — they get it and they have an admirable sense of their responsibilities to society as a whole.  They don’t just focus on their rights over everything else.

 

We will do our part, willingly and without reservation.

 

Chip

Chip

If my answer resolves your issue, please take a minute to mark it as Best Answer. That helps people who find this thread in the future.

Piper’s Ice Cream Bar, Covington KY USA
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“Take what you like, take what works, leave the rest!”
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Beta Member

We fire the ignorant...

 

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Super Seller

Some customers are more of a liability in the long run. I remember a piece of advice I heard once..."If a difficult customer complains they are taking their business elsewhere AND they are telling ALL of their friends...do not worry. Chances are their friends are just like them so you don't want them as customers anyway". This is also related to the old saying "birds of a feather...". Find your tribe and do your best to support them and they will support you!

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Beta Member

I love this, and would love to use these words myself, if that's okay. Do you know the original source?

 

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Alumni

Jumping on the train to say I love this too. It seems like exactly the right sentiment to handle a situation such as this.

Aaron Weiss
Former Community Lead, Square
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You are fabulous. Like you, we've taken a hard stance on this since we reopened in April, and will continue to. Folks who feel they don't need to respect business policies ... well, we don't need their business, right?!

 

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Beta Member

It's like this...

 

Every day STILL ICU's are filling up with CHILDREN. Those adults who are unvaccinated, beg for it on their incubated death beds.


We need to stop being soft and polite. This virus will kill you or sit in you to kill others.

 

We have to stay open because our nation hasn't gripped how to handle our divide and give us a way to live through this, vaccinate everyone, and let it die off with a proper shutdown until we understand it totally...

 

I've lost one barber so far to this . . . I have long COVID (memory issues, respiratory, and fatigue issues). One of my barbers still hasn't recovered their sense of taste and smell. One other is Auto Immune Compromised.

 

I have had 2 customers come in and literally. LITERALLY Scream at us because of asking to put a mask on, at 8:30am this very morning. I had one barber walk out already today to get their head together to bear with the ignorance and selfishness of these ignorant fools.

 

__

 

I'll end with this. 

 

We are basically at a war with disinformation and ignorance. 

 

Be strong. Be intelligent. 

 

Enough have died. Be smarter and more proactive than ANYONE tells you...they say 3 feet apart...make it 6...they say no mask....you mask.

 

We have to stay open to live. It's soul sucking some days, but we HAVE to. For our barbers, and my family (My husband was in a catastrophic wreck not of his fault in March 2020 and is now disabled and cannot work).

 

But. We all must BE STRONG AND BE INTELLIGENT.

 

If not for those we love and care for, for those we'll never meet.

 

Fire the ignorant. 

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Customers have the choice to wear a mask or not. 95% of our customers are no longer wearing masks.

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Beta Member

Our business is usually only a single customer at a time and pretty much always six feet apart. Employees have been vaccinated so we take queues from the customers. If they have a mask on we will put one on. If things get worse we may go back to wearing masks for all customers but we will wait and see.

Katrina@BSLprints
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Small designer scarf collection - unvaccinated mask up, vaccinated are not required.  Subject to change based on city/county numbers and CDC/state guidance.  

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Beta Member

We have had a strict policy that masks have to be worn regardless of vaccination status. If anyone removes their mask in the shop, they are told to leave and are banned from the store. 99% of our customers appreciate and like that we have been strictly enforcing rules and looking out for everyone's health. The 1% who feel that rules don't apply to them ... we don't want nor need their business. 

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Super Seller

We also returned fully to masks after a Vax up or Mask up campaign at our studio. People are bummed but understand. Our staff are vaccinated and we are doing our part to educate about the vaccine. We provide masks for those who come without one. Haven't had any issues so far nor did we during our masked reopening. We opened last summer with masks through this June and were one month without them. Hopefully we can go back to that.

Deanna [they/them]

MudFire CEO | Square enthusiast

Visit me at MudFire online
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