Don’t ditch your masks: Businesses can still require them as Beaufort Co. mandate ends
Even though Beaufort County governments are beginning to lift their COVID-19 mask mandates, don’t throw your face coverings away just yet.
Health officials are urging residents to wear masks in many situations. And private businesses can still require them.
“As a private business, you can decide whether you allow customers or visitors onto your property if they are not wearing a mask. This is similar to the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ policy that you commonly see,” according to Fisher Phillips LLP, a national law firm that focuses on employment and labor issues.
Beaufort County, Bluffton and Port Royal have opted to allow their mask requirements to expire. But some businesses still plan to keep their own rules in place.
Many national retailers, for example, have company-wide mask requirements. Those rules don’t change when local governments end their mandates.
Spokespeople for CVS, Best Buy, Kroger and Walmart confirmed that their companies still have nationwide mask requirements for shoppers and employees (representatives of other chains didn’t respond to requests for comments).
Not all businesses will take the same approach.
Southern Barrel Brewing Co. in Bluffton announced in a Facebook post Thursday that it would recommend that customers wear masks when entering and leaving the building off Buckwalter Parkway, but would no longer require people to do so.
“Our staff will continue to wear their masks for the time being,” the post read.
Bluffton’s mask ordinance, which first went into effect last summer, had required masks inside buildings open to the public. The town council on Tuesday voted 4-1 to let the rules expire later in the week.
“My opinion is we are not in an emergency,” said council member Larry Toomer, who voted against another extension of the mandate. “I’m here speaking strongly because I listen to my people. My people are saying ‘let us breathe.’”
Hilton Head Island and the city of Beaufort still have mask requirements.
Public health recommendations
Fully vaccinated people can gather indoors without masks, according to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Residents are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose of either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s vaccines. They also are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Completely vaccinated residents can also safely gather indoors — without masks — with unvaccinated people from a different household, unless any of those unvaccinated residents, or anyone they live with, has an increased risk for serious COVID-19 complications, according to the CDC.
In public, meanwhile, the CDC says fully vaccinated people should continue to wear masks, practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings.
And if a fully vaccinated person has COVID-19 symptoms, that person should get tested and stay home, health officials say.
Residents can still get infected after being fully inoculated, although that appears to be extremely rare.
