Walmart remained open despite six cases in a week
Black Friday at the Walmart in Taos appeared to be a big success, with a line of customers winding around the northern edge of the store late into the afternoon on Nov. 27.
Less than a week earlier, on Nov. 22, the store on Paseo del Pueblo Sur recorded its sixth positive case in a week’s time, but has remained open despite a public health order that has required many other businesses throughout the state to close. The store had three cases on Nov. 15, and one each on Nov. 19, 20, and 22, according to the New Mexico Environment Department.
Typically, if a business records at least four cases in a two-week period, it is required to close for the following two weeks under the rule. More than 20 “essential businesses,” including five Walmart Supercenters elsewhere in the state, have been shut down in the last two weeks for that very reason.
So why has the Taos Walmart remained open?
Tripp Stelnicki, director of communications for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, said in an email that the Walmart in Taos has agreed to pay for its own regular testing
and contact tracing, a loophole that allows essential businesses to remain open – no matter how many of their employees get sick.
Management at the Taos Walmart declined to respond to multiple phone calls from the Taos News asking for more details about how the store made the cut for the exception when so many other stores have not.
Rebecca Thomason, a senior communications manager from the Walmart corporate offices in Arkansas, sent a press packet in response to an inquiry from the Taos News this week, which didn’t directly address the question either.
“Rest assured we are taking all measures necessary to safeguard the well-being of those inside our stores, fulfillment centers and distribution centers,” reads a statement from the corporation. “We have been working to ensure our stores are cleaned and sanitized regularly. We are focused on serving our customers and keeping our associates safe during this unprecedented time and we’ve implemented several measures in consideration of guidance by the CDC and health experts intended to help bring peace of mind.”
Nothing in the corporation’s response explained how the Taos Walmart is meeting the requirements to be granted an exemption from the enforced closure in New Mexico.
The packet did say, however, that all stores in New Mexico are supposed to be limiting customer capacity to 20 percent, a requirement left to the stores themselves to measure and enforce.
Meanwhile, small businesses in Taos unable to afford the cost of in-house testing enjoyed none of the benefits of the Black Friday sale last week, and if deemed non-essential by the state, have remained closed since the governor ordered a “reset” in midNovember to the strictest economic shutdown enacted since the pandemic began. Under a new framework by the state,
As of Dec. 1, however, the NMED showed that no businesses in Taos County had met the criteria for closure. The criteria for closure includes four or more positive coronavirus cases in the prior 14 days.