Apple listed three shops to be closed on Thursday: one in Miami, one in Ottawa, and one in Annapolis, Maryland. Authorities fear the omicron variety, which looks to be more transmissible, will have a greater impact on the holiday shopping season.
Closed stores frequently occur when 10% of employees test positive. The CDC claims that Omicron is now the main virus strain spreading across the US. The company has responded by restoring its facemask policy and postponing plans to resume office work for all employees.
The staff at Apple’s stores will undergo COVID-19 testing before reopening, which might postpone the shutdown past Thursday and Friday. Since the beginning of this year, Apple’s retail staff have had access to weekly at-home testing that the corporation has offered to them.
Also this week, Apple stated that all of its stores in the United States will be required to provide customers with face masks.
In addition to store closures, the tech giant has made changes to specific store procedures in response to regional situations. These changes include a greater emphasis on customer pick-ups through buying online rather than in-store purchasing and an increase in the amount of space available for social distance between customers.
In 2020, Apple closed all stores due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All stores reopened in January. Apple has since closed stores due to coronavirus, including one in Texas last week.
This same crisis looks to be brewing at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), as corporations are backing out of or reducing back their participation as a result of the COVID-19 virus outbreak. Amazon, Meta, Twitter, and T-Mobile, among other companies, have indicated that they will no longer be attending the event in person owing to the threat posed by the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
