Walmart reinstates lapsed COVID-19 precautions as US cases surge

Walmart has resumed counting the number of customers entering and leaving to keep stores at 20% capacity as COVID-19 cases surge in the United States.

The chain had instituted the policy in April, but later stopped counting the number of people inside as cases waned across the country, CNBC reported.

Now, new coronavirus cases are topping 100,000 a day in the United States, reaching 184,000 on Friday, CNN reported. The nation’s daily death toll from the pandemic topped 1,300 at least three times last week.

“We know from months of metering data in our stores that the vast majority of the time our stores didn’t reach our self-imposed 20% metering capacity,” said Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesperson, CNN reported. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have resumed counting the number of people entering and leaving our stores.”

The retail giant also plans to spread its Black Friday deals out over three weekends to reduce crowding, according to the network. It’s also encouraging customers to shop online instead.

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Health experts are already sounding the alarm about the holiday season.

“We’re going to see an unprecedented surge of cases following Thanksgiving this year, and if people don’t learn from Thanksgiving, we’re going to see it after Christmas as well,” said Dr. James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, CNN reported.

More than 54 million cases of the COVID-19 virus have been confirmed worldwide with more than 1.3 million deaths as of Nov. 15, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more than 10 million confirmed cases with more than 245,000 deaths.