Reopening Your Small Business: Why (or Why Not) Require a Mask?

Keep employees and customers safe as you reopen for business

On May 13, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) updated their public health recommendations for fully vaccinated people in non-healthcare settings. This update indicates that fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except when there is a federal, state, local, tribal or territorial law, rule or regulation that requires it.(1)

This may be good news for vaccinated individuals, but it has complicated reopening plans for small business owners who wonder how this recommendation applies to their employees and customers.

Priority one is keeping employees and customers safe during the pandemic. If you are questioning whether to require masks, and there are no mask mandates in your area, consider the following: as of May 27, 2021 40% of the US population has been fully vaccinated, with 49% having received at least one dose of the vaccine.(2) That could mean that roughly half of your employees and customers could be unvaccinated. This number varies from state to state and even county to county. Utilize the CDC tracker to understand the vaccination status in your county. If you are a business with a high number of tourists, this will be less useful for your assessment. To help prevent and reduce transmission among employees and from unvaccinated customers, especially in areas with low vaccination numbers and a high number of tourists, consider keeping mask requirements in place. If your entire workforce is vaccinated, then you might consider relaxing this requirement for non-healthcare businesses.

Additional CDC guidance is outlined in the COVID-19 Guidance: Businesses and Employers. Keep in mind that the CDC continues to update its guidance so you should check back with this resource periodically.

Regardless of the CDC guidance, you need to identify if there are any mask mandates that apply to your small business. Here are some tips to help you determine whether you are required to keep mask policies in place:

• Identify any health department mask mandates, which could be from a local health department or the state health department. You can find your local health department using NACCHO’s Online Directory of Local Health Departments.

Mask mandates differ from state to state and even county to county due to the variation in reported COVID-19 cases and number of vaccinated individuals of that area. If you have multiple business locations around the country, check requirements for each location.

• Check with your industry-specific governing body for rules and requirements related to masks. For example, the TSA still requires a face mask for air travelers, regardless of vaccination status. This takes precedence over the CDC recommendation; (3)
• Keep your customer in mind. You may want to consider stricter mask requirements for a specific audience, such as particularly vulnerable populations, or customers and visitors age 11 and under, since vaccines are still not available for that age group. (4)
• You may also wish to have a different mask requirement for employees versus customers. This allows customers who have been vaccinated to take advantage of the new CDC guidelines. Having your employees continue to wear a mask keeps them safe, especially if some are still unvaccinated.

Project N95 is here to help ensure your business is able to thrive as we all get back to work. If you are in need of masks for your small business, please visit our shop where we have a wide variety of domestic and imported masks to consider, along with hand sanitizer, surface disinfectants and COVID-19 tests (we’ll go into more detail on tests in our next post).

Have additional questions on how to reopen safely? Consider utilizing the US Chamber of Commerce resource Ready to Reopen: A Playbook for Your Small Business.

References

1. The COVID-19 testing & ‘Mask Mandate’ landscape is constantly changing. The information in this article came from references available as of May 14, 2021.
2. COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review | CDC
3. CDC Updated their guidance for masking on May 13, 2021
4. CDC Guidance for Wearing Masks

Source for Information

Who am I? I am a volunteer with ProjectN95.org who is using my background in nutrition, marketing, supply chain and FDA regulations to vet PPE and COVID-19 Test Kits. My focus started with N95 respirators, then moved on to hand sanitizers and surface disinfectants and now includes working with suppliers of COVID-19 test kits. The tips in this post and future posts are to help you better understand how to select products to help keep you and your family and coworkers safe during the pandemic. This information was compiled using government websites, consulting experts and working with an amazing law firm in DC who is also donating their time to ProjectN95.org. If you have a talent that you think could help ProjectN95.org, please sign-up to volunteer — Roles | Project N95!

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