McDonald’s to keep dining rooms closed in Texas, Mississippi
March 4, 2021
(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp will keep dining rooms in its Texas and Mississippi restaurants closed, even as the two U.S. states lifted coronavirus curbs allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity.
The fast-food chain told Reuters on Thursday it was not planning to make any changes to its COVID-19 protocols right away.
The decline in the new number of daily COVID-19 cases and the rollout of vaccines prompted state and local governments to ease business restrictions in recent weeks, reopening movie theaters at limited capacity and resuming indoor dining in some parts of the country.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and Texas Governor Greg Abbott lifted their state’s mask order and removed all restrictions on businesses earlier this week.
Several quick-service restaurants have resorted to drive-thru, delivery and pick-up services to limit contact and reduce the chances of its customers contracting the virus, even after lockdowns were lifted.
McDonald’s will look at state- and country-level data, assess case rates to make any decision on reopening dining rooms in the future, it confirmed.
General Motors, Toyota Motor, Target Corp, Macy’s Inc and Kroger have also not made any changes to their mask policies.
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru and by Hilary Russ in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel)