Apple is temporarily closing some of its U.S. stores in four states amid new concerns regarding the rise of CCP virus cases, the company said Friday.
Eleven stores across Arizona, Florida, Northern Carolina, and South Carolina will be temporarily shuttered starting on Saturday, reported The Associated Press.
“Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas,” Apple said in a statement to Yahoo Finance. “We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible.”
The announcement comes after the states saw an increase in CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases, reported The Associated Press.
In Arizona alone, over the past two weeks, the state saw a rise of 286.7 new cases per 100,000 people, which puts The Grand Canyon State in first place in terms of new virus cases in the country, with an 143.1 percent increase.
Florida had also seen a rise of new cases over the past two weeks. The Sunshine State had a 144.4 percent increase, with 1,024 new cases, according to AP.
North and South Carolina also saw an increase in cases of COVID-19, the disease the CCP virus causes.
Apple closed its stores in March in response to the pandemic, making it one of the first few retail companies to do so. Since then, most of its stores have remained closed until late May, when lockdown restrictions started easing up in the United States, according to USA Today.
On March 17, when the company reopened many of its stores, it wrote a letter to the public to ensure customers that the decision wasn’t rushed.
“Our commitment is to only move forward with a reopening once we’re confident we can safely return to serving customers from our stores. We look at every available piece of data—including local cases, near and long‑term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials,” the letter read.
However, the company added in the letter that “a store opening in no way means that we won’t take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant.”
