Unvaccinated employees must continue to wear masks in its
stores and offices until further notice, the memo said.
Walmart said it had made the decision after closely
monitoring Covid trends across the country.
It came at the end of a week in which Democratic governors
from Connecticut to California began to lift statewide masking policies as coronavirus
cases fueled by the Omicron variant were dropping precipitously, and it is in
line with similar announcements from other companies.
Amazon said on Thursday that vaccinated employees in
warehouses in states that had dropped mask mandates could opt out of wearing
masks as well.
Walmart, which has about 1.6 million employees in the United
States alone, was among the first private employers at the start of the
pandemic to mandate that its workers wear masks.
The company eased the mask requirement for vaccinated
workers and shoppers for several months in the spring before reimposing it yet
again for some workers when the Delta variant posed a significant threat.
Then, in December as new cases driven by Omicron began to
surge, the company again required masks for all workers.
The company also said that a pandemic sick-pay plan that had
been in place for the past two years to cover Covid-related illnesses would end
on March 31, unless it was required by state or local governments.
The memo also said that daily health screenings before each
shift would no longer be necessary for workers, except those in California, New
York and Virginia.
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