COVID In MN: Target's New Policy Adds To Consumer Mask Confusion
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A major announcement from Target is adding to the mask confusion Minnesotans are experiencing.
The retailer lifted its mask mandate for fully-vaccinated customers and staff. However, if a local city ordinance still requires face coverings, then Target stores in that city will follow those rules.
Less than a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted the mandate for vaccinated people, clarification on where and when to cover up persists. WCCO spoke with TJ Parker Monday after he left a Target in Uptown.
"I'm assuming to wear it into every business," Parker said.
Grocery stores Cub Foods and Lunds & Byerlys enacted policies similar to Target Monday.
The change won't impact people in Minneapolis or St. Paul, where city ordinances still require them indoors.
"I think the leadership has probably been the most confusing. It's hard to put blame on a business when the leadership has been different across the nation," Parker said.
In Plymouth, customers approached Target with masks on despite the city not requiring them.
The CDC said the COVID-19 vaccine not only protects people from the virus, it reduces the risk of spreading it. That development, and the vaccination rate countrywide, influenced the CDC's shift last week.
But hair stylist Megan Brezicka, who works in Plymouth, said she'll continue to err on the side of caution when it comes to masks, given the lack of social distancing and time spent with clients in her chair.
"Some [clients] are in high-risk groups, and so it's important to me to consider them," Brezicka said.
She says preventing herself from getting sick is also important because she can't risk missing work. Her salon uniquely keeps stylists separated in their own rooms, ideal in a pandemic. Dropping the masks though is one of Brezicka's eventual goals.
"I want to see kind of how the numbers go, and the percentage of fully-vaccinated people in our area, and also see how the cases respond to the mask mandate being lifted," she said.
The CDC continues to require masks be worn by all people while taking public transportation, such as buses, trains and airplanes.