Attention, American McDonald’s fans: If you want a Big Mac after July 31, you’ll have no choice but to mask up.
Citing the 1 million new reported U.S. coronavirus cases over the past two weeks, McDonald’s is requiring customers at all its U.S. locations to wear protective face masks beginning Aug. 1, the company announced in a news release last Friday.
“While nearly 82% of our restaurants are in states or localities that require facial coverings for both crew and customers today, it’s important we protect the safety of all employees and customers,” McDonald’s said in its statement.
Scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows face masks dramatically decrease the spread of COVID-19. The disease is primarily spread through expelled respiratory droplets, and face masks keep most of these droplets from being expelled into the open air, where they can linger and infect others.
What happens if you enter McDonald’s without a mask? According to last week’s news release, McDonald’s is implementing new procedures to deal with these customers “in a friendly, expedited way.”
As for what these procedures entail, McDonald’s told NPR that employees will offer these customers a mask, and if the customer refuses, they’ll be directed to “a designated pick-up spot a safe distance from other customers.” McDonald’s employees will also receive additional “de-escalation” training.
These changes follow reports that numerous McDonald’s employees have been verbally or physically assaulted after confronting customers who weren’t wearing masks. Business Insider reported on a recent Service Employees International Union survey, in which 44% of more than 4,000 polled McDonald’s workers said they’d been verbally or physically assaulted by such customers.
In one high-profile incident from June, 19-year-old McDonald’s cashier Maria Resendiz was assaulted by an unmasked drive-thru customer in Oakland.
“The man continued to shout racial slurs and physical insults at Resendiz before putting his hands through the window (which Resendiz said she was unable hold shut due to a broken lock), then grabbed her neck, slapped her and scratched her,” Today.com reported.
In addition to the new mask policy, McDonald’s will pause its dining room re-openings for another 30 days, and install divider panels and “retrofit barrier solutions” in both its customer- and employee-designated areas.
“The panels are an additional safety measure and not a replacement for consistent PPE execution or adherence to social distancing guidelines,” McDonald’s clarified in its news release.