Jewel-Osco Reinstates Employee Mask Mandate Amid COVID-19 Case Surge

ILLINOIS — Supermarket chain Jewel-Osco has announced it is reinstating a mask mandate for all employees, as 15 Illinois counties report being in the "high" COVID-19 community transmission category according to standards set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The requirement, which had been lifted by the retail chain of grocery stores, was put back into place this week, according to a statement by Jewel-Osco officials.

“Due to current high COVID transmission rates in the counties where we have stores, the Distribution Center, and the corporate office we are requiring associates and vendors to wear a mask,” the statement said, according to NBC Chicago.

In the statement, Jewel/Osco said that it is reissuing the mask mandate for employees and vendors based on guidance from the CDC and Illinois Department of Public Health.

On Wednesday, the IDPH announced that there were 36,843 new COVID-19 cases and 45 new COVID-19-related deaths across the state. More than 1,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across Illinois, and 27 are on ventilators.

A county is considered to be in the “high” community category if it reports more than 200 new cases per 100,000 residents. As of Wednesday, the city of Chicago and Cook, DuPage, Kane, Will, McHenry and other counties around the greater Chicago area were considered to be in the “high" category.

A county is also considered to be in the “high” category if it reports 10 or more hospitalizations per 100,000 residents or is seeing 10 percent of hospital occupancy filled by COVID-19 patients.

Health officials have cited a new subvariant of the omicron coronavirus variant for the recent surge in Illinois cases.

The CDC recommends that residents who live in communities listed in the “high” category wear masks indoors, and the agency recommends that immunocompromised residents take additional steps to protect themselves.