Should you wear a mask at a drive-thru? Here’s what workers and experts have to say
Public health officials have pushed Americans to wear a mask or face covering in public to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.
But does the drive-thru count?
Yes, according to state health departments, medical centers and university health systems. And given the proximity between a drive-thru window and a customer’s car, some essential workers would agree.
“If you’re close enough I can hand you something, you need to be wearing a mask,” a Starbucks barista in Contra Costa County, California, told NBC.
The worker, who is not named, said a notice hanging on a bulletin board at the coffee shop warns employees “the company will not enforce the mask requirement at the drive-through unless locally mandated,” NBC reported.
A Starbucks spokesperson confirmed the policy to the TV station.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that citizens should wear masks in public as a way to slow the transmission of the coronavirus. The CDC had initially warned that face coverings “were likely to do more harm than good” — but then recommended masks after new research on how the virus spreads, NPR reported.
A barrage of state and local mask mandates followed in May and June as COVID-19 hot spots emerged across much of the Southeast and west coast, prompting debates over when and where a mask is appropriate — from exercising outdoors (sometimes) to driving a car (probably not).
According to the CDC, face coverings should be worn “in public settings and when around people who don’t live in your household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.”
The CDC also recommends drive-thru banking and food services to limit person-to-person contact and minimize risk.
Driving alone in a car is “a pretty low risk situation,” Dr. Aaron Hamilton wrote in a blog post for the Cleveland Clinic, an Ohio-based medical center. But drive-thru services and curbside pickup require human interaction, meaning a mask is advisable, he said.
Health management company Horizon Health classified “picking up food from the drive thru or curbside pickup” as a public setting included in the CDC’s mask recommendation.
UT Health Austin, part of the University of Texas, said the CDC recommends “wearing cloth face masks in public settings where maintaining a physical distance of six feet has proven to be difficult” — including drive-thru locations.
The Illinois Department of Public Health specifically mentions “picking up food from the drive-thru or curbside” in its guidelines for mask usage, and Eat This, Not That — an online magazine covering health and wellness — reported not wearing a mask is “the biggest drive-thru mistake you could make during the pandemic.”
“Just as you would wear a mask anywhere else in public, you absolutely must wear a face mask at the drive-thru as well,” the magazine reported.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 2:04 PM with the headline "Should you wear a mask at a drive-thru? Here’s what workers and experts have to say."
