Schnucks employees required to wear masks in St. Louis, St. Louis County stores due to increase in COVID cases

ST. LOUIS — Employees at Schnucks stores in St. Louis and St. Louis County are required to wear facemasks due to increasing cases, the company announced this week.

In a post on its website, Schnucks said it is requiring employees and vendor partners to wear masks inside stores in regions where the CDC considers COVID-19 community levels to be high. Both St. Louis and St. Louis County met that classification.

The stores that are affected by the change are as follows:

• Affton
• Arsenal
• Ballwin
• Brentwood
• Bridgeton
• Butler Hill
• Chesterfield
• City Plaza
• Crestwood
• Creve Coeur
• Cross Keys
• Des Peres
• Dorsett
• Downtown
• Eureka Point
• Fenton
• Ferguson
• Florissant
• Grandview
• Gravois
• Hampton Village
• Kehrs Mill
• Kirkwood
• Lemay
• Lindell
• Lindbergh
• Loughborough
• Maplewood
• Mason
• Overland
• Richmond Center
• Shackelford
• Sierra Vista
• South City
• St. John
• Telegraph
• Twin Oaks
• University City
• Webster Groves
• Westfall Plaza
• Wildwood
• Woods Mill

"Schnucks has posted signage at these locations strongly encouraging customers to wear a face covering per CDC guidance and will continue to offer complimentary facemasks to all customers at all locations," the post said.

The CDC suggests the following steps in regions with a high level of COVID-19 in the community:

• Wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status or individual risk (including in K-12 schools and other community settings)
• If you are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe illness, wear a mask or respirator that provides you with greater protection

Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, director of health for the city of St. Louis, addressed the increase in her virtual town hall on Wednesday.

"We're now in the high transmission and community level in the city of St. Louis," she said.

RELATED: St. Louis back at high risk level for COVID-19 transmission

The city was previously at moderate COVID-19 transmission levels.

Right now, she says the number of new reported COVID-19 cases is as high as it was during last summer's delta variant surge.

"It's hard to get accurate numbers because people are not testing as much as they used to. Those numbers have plummeted," she added.