JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) – Leo Carney worries that larger crowds and masked dining rooms could endanger workers at the Biloxi Seafood Restaurant in Mississippi, where he manages the kitchen. Maribel Cornejo, who earns $ 9.85 an hour as a McDonald’s cook in Houston, can’t afford the discomfort and co-workers worry about letting go of the mask, even though the fast food company requires it.
As more jurisdictions join Texas, Mississippi and other states to lift mask warrants and by easing restrictions on businesses, many essential workers, including waiters, restaurant servers, and retail workers, are relieved by changes that can help the economy, but also worry that they may make them less secure. in the midst of a pandemic that health experts warn is far from over.
Many Mississippi Gulf Coast businessmen rejoiced that Governor Tate Reeves decided to remove mask requirements, restaurant seating limits, and most other binding restrictions. “But the workers themselves … especially those who have pre-existing conditions, are scared right now,” Carney said.
“This puts us back in a situation where we’re back on the front lines, under the gun,” said Carney, who sees Black Mississipians facing the biggest risks of the decision that went into effect Wednesday. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected blacks and Latinos in the United States, and many Gulf Coast restaurants have a significant number of black employees.
Public health experts following the trajectory of more contagious virus variants have warned that lifting restrictions too soon could lead to another lethal wave of infections. Although vaccination actions are accelerating as drug manufacturers increase production, many essential workers are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in Mississippi and other states.
On Friday, Alabama State Health Officer advised residents to follow standard infection prevention recommendations, although the governor allows the state mask mandate to expire. next month.
“There’s nothing magical about the April 9 date. We don’t want the public to think it’s the day we all stop taking precautions,” said state health official Scott Harris.
The governors of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota have also finalized the mask requirements or plan to suspend them soon. The South Carolina governor on Friday lifted an executive order requiring facial coverage on government office and restaurant buildings, leaving state administrators and restaurant operators to develop their own guidelines.
Governors in several states, including Michigan and Louisiana, have lowered the operating limits of bars, restaurants and other businesses in recent days.
The National Retail Federation, the largest retail association in the United States, issued a statement Wednesday encouraging shoppers to wear masks. Some retail chains, including Target and supermarket operator Albertson, plan to continue to demand them from both customers and workers in states that no longer make them mandatory.
The president and CEO of the Texas Retailers Association, George Kelemen, said he believes many members will continue to require workers (but not necessarily customers) to wear masks and other protective equipment.
“Retailers know their customers better,” he said.
McDonald’s chef Cornejo, 43, said the end of Texas ’masks mandate next week would sound the alarm because several of his co-workers were already lax about keeping their faces covered. He said his co-workers had asked for the masks to be removed over his nose, politely, but not always for long.
“There are just different attitudes,” said Cornejo, whose 19-year-old son began working as a cashier at the same restaurant to help pay the family’s bills. “Some people say it’s too hard to hold it for eight hours, especially when it’s hot.”
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, encouraged Americans to “do the right thing” by continuing to follow recommendations on routine mask use and social distancing, even if their states lift restrictions.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said people who wear masks still risk infection from unmasked shoppers and diners. He called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift COVID-19 restrictions effective March 10 “too soon and too carefree.”
Although deaths and new confirmed cases have plummeted since their January highs across the country, they remain at high levels, while outbreak indicators in some states have risen in recent weeks. In Mississippi, for example, the seven-day rotating average of the virus positivity rate increased from 11.47% on February 19 to 12.14% on March 5, and the rotating average of daily deaths of 7 days of the state increases during the same period from 15 per day to 20.71 per day.
Workers in cities that still have mask warrants or jobs in companies that maintain their own virus prevention standards anticipate challenging customers overwhelmed by the actions of their governors and tired of taking precautions.
Molly Brooks, 25, a bartender at a Farmers Branch, Texas, cafe, said she has regularly dealt with customers who came out or intimidated her and her colleagues when asked to wear a mask. . Brooks worries about how they will enforce the rule, which the cafeteria plans to maintain, now that the Texas governor has lifted the state mask mandate.
“We are preparing for the emotional toll that this will entail,” said the 25-year-old barista, who began working in the cafeteria in November while looking for a job in education. “People who don’t want to carry them will still fight … and now they’ll have even more ammunition.”
Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi, will require masks and will only allow eight customers at a time. While general manager Lyn Roberts believes the rules will make many customers feel safe, bookstore employee Paul Fyke said he noticed a change in Oxford almost as soon as the advisory board opted. to follow the governor’s example and ended the university city’s mask mandate.
“I mean, really, even at home, you can already see that there were places where, for a lot of people, it was a triumph,” he said Thursday, the day after the mask requirement of Oxford. “They were happy to remove them.”
However, some workers are cautiously confident that fewer restrictions will bring more clients, advice and job security after one year in all three.
In San Francisco, where the mayor announced last week the return of the indoor dining room and the reopening of movie theaters and gyms, Dino Keres had no hesitation in serving drinks to customers at Sam’s Grill’s bar. .
This is partly because he was about to get his second dose of vaccine, but also because none of the staff became infected when he was briefly allowed to eat inside last fall. In addition, masks are required unless people eat and the interior seats are limited to 25% capacity.
“We’ve been through it once and now is the right time to try it again,” Keres said Thursday.
Ro Hart, assistant general manager and host of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco, said the return of restaurants to the city sparked a mixture of joy and anxiety.
“We’re happy to generate more income, but we’re also a little nervous, because we have to be stricter to make sure everyone keeps the masks on when they don’t eat,” Hart said, adding that she would be much more concerned if San Francisco does not require masks.
“We feel for our brothers and sisters in all those Texas restaurants,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Alexandra Olson and Joseph Pisani in New York; David Koenig in Dallas; Dee-Ann Durbin in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this story.