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The company said on Wednesday it was adapting its health and safety guidelines based on “guidance from health officials and government.”
The resorts – which are located in Orlando, Florida and Anaheim, California – will require employees, known as “Cast Members” and guests aged 2 and over, to wear masks and face coverings indoors from Friday.
It’s “regardless of vaccine status,” according to Disney.
The move comes as the Delta Covid-19 variant spreads rapidly, leading big companies to rethink their plans to get workers back to the office and even make vaccinations mandatory. For example, Google (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB) Wednesday became two of the biggest companies to require employees to be vaccinated when they return to work.
The decision to ask guests to wear masks again is also notable since Disney (SAY) is the premier destination in the theme park industry as well as a mainstay of the company’s media empire.
The change in guidelines comes after the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their mask guidelines on Tuesday, recommending that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas of “substantial” transmission and “High” of Covid-19.
News of the return of masks to Disney’s national parks also follows the mayor of Orange County, where Disney World is located, saying the county is in “crisis mode.”
“These numbers are extraordinary. We are seeing almost 1,000 new cases every day in Orange County. These are the numbers we saw at the highest peak last year,” Mayor Jerry Demings said Monday.
Disney’s Parks and Resorts division has been hit very hard because of the pandemic. The epidemic led to a difficult year which resulted in prolonged shutdowns and significant layoffs.
– CNN’s Clare Duffy, Jacqueline Howard and Devan Cole contributed to this report.
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