The city of Key West on April 5 renewed its seven-day emergency order and implemented additional protective measures for essential businesses and the people who need to patronize them.
The latest directive from the city takes effect at midnight on Tuesday, April 7 and requires essential businesses to:
- Reduce the business’s maximum occupancy by 50% by monitoring entrances and exits. Businesses with multiple entrances and exits shall establish a protocol at entrance and exit points.
- Provide alcohol-based hand sanitizers for use by customers and employees, subject to the availability of supplies.
- Provide disinfecting wipes at points of entrance, cash registers and other appropriate locations. As an alternative, essential businesses shall designate staff responsible for disinfecting carts, shopping baskets, point-of-purchase terminals and other areas as frequently as possible.
- Implement procedures to ensure that both employees and customers remain at least 6 feet apart at all times. This can be accomplished with marking floors and other visible systems.
- Close all salad bars and other self-serve food stations.
- Refrain from distributing free samples or offering tastings.
New citywide requirements for covering the nose and mouth state:
All employees and customers of any essential business where 10 or more people congregate shall be required to wear a form of covering over their nose and mouth at all times while inside the business. Examples of such businesses include grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, food distribution points and hardware stores. These coverings may include face masks, a homemade mask or other cloth covering such as a scarf or bandanna. In addition, employers are strongly urged to implement policies for employees to use other protective equipment like gloves.
These requirements do not apply to outdoor activities, except for persons providing delivery services.
Finally, the directive orders any person who has been diagnosed, or is reasonably believed to have been infected with COVID-19 shall separate themselves from all individuals who are not infected to prevent the possible spread of the disease.
“Ideally, we are already doing the right thing with social distancing,” said City Manager Greg Veliz. “This is one more step to ensure that we slow or stop the spread of this disease so we can quickly get on the road to recovery.”
