Where You Do And Don't Need A Mask In Washington For Now

OLYMPIA, WA — Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its guidance to say that fully vaccinated customers should no longer be required to wear masks while shopping indoors.

Following the CDC's announcement, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Washington would follow suit, effectively dropping the state's mask mandate and allowing stores to welcome back customers without masks, provided they have waited at least two weeks since they got their final dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

However, under the CDC's guidance stores can still choose to require masks for all customers, regardless of vaccination status.

These stores have lifted mask requirements for fully vaccinated customers:

• Target
• CVS
• PCC Community Markets
• Costco
• Walmart
• Trader Joe's
• Starbucks
• Home Depot
• Walgreens
• Aldi

Kroger, the grocery giant behind QFC, Fred Meyer's and many other chains, announced Wednesday that it will no longer be requiring masks for fully vaccinated customers or employees beginning Thursday.

Masks are still required in other settings like at hospitals, health care clinics, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, on public transit and in public schools.

While grocery stores and retailers have been left to decide for themselves if they want to keep mask requirements or not, they may not have to worry much longer. Washington is finalizing new formal mask guidance for businesses across the state, hoping to calm the confusion surrounding the CDC's change.

State health leaders say the CDC's about-face on the issue came as a surprise, and may not be what's best for each community's health right now.

"As this pandemic has evolved, we have gotten guidance from our federal partners at the CDC, and it has been challenging when we do not have a heads-up that guidance is about to come out," Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said. "Let's be frank, that's what happened here last week. We learned very quickly, just as all of you did, that the CDC was updating guidance. That is, unfortunately, the way it happened. It is inconsistent with how the CDC has operated in prior emergencies."

At the Washington State Department of Health's weekly briefing Wednesday, Shah said the CDC's decision to publicly announce a change in mask guidance, without consulting state health leaders first, may have caused some mixed messaging, which their new guidance would help correct.

"We did our best to follow, in a very difficult situation, to follow the guidance of the CDC and you can see it both ways, right? If we had opted not to follow the guidance, then we would have also had people saying 'Well, why did you not follow the guidance, because the CDC has issued that,'" Shah said. "It's really a no-win situation."

The DOH is expected to release their formal guidance by the end of the week. Until then, businesses that have dropped their mask requirements, like Starbucks, Walmart and Costco, will be allowed to continue serving fully vaccinated customers without masks.

If the state DOH does not reinstate a new mask mandate, there is a chance some counties may do so instead. Public Health - Seattle & King County have said it will announce its own guidance sometime in the next few days and King County's top health official, Dr. Jeff Duchin, has been one of the strongest voices calling for masks to remain on indoors, regardless of vaccination status.

"We can and will transition to masking for only unvaccinated & those vaccinated who choose to," Duchin tweeted Wednesday. "For now, continue what’s worked for us by everyone masking in indoor public spaces while we get disease rates lower, more people vaccinated & more of our community protected."

Snohomish County's health officer, Dr. Chris Spitters, has also gone on record saying that businesses should continue following the state's current mask guidance, and that people with compromised immune systems should continue wearing masks, even if they're already vaccinated.

If counties do take the initiative and announce their own mask mandates, the DOH has said they will not object.

"Local leaders know their communities best, and there are going to be communities where masks are still required," said Lacy Fehrenback, Washington's Deputy Secretary for COVID Response. "There are going to be businesses that still require masks. There are reasons...that people who are fully-vaccinated may choose to wear masks."