A second Boston-area Walmart store has closed after an employee died of covid-19, and 10 more tested positive for the coronavirus.
The store in Quincy, Mass., is closed "until further notice," Mayor Tom Koch said in a recorded daily update Monday. Koch said the city's health commissioner "has been in touch with [Walmart Inc.], and they made a decision on their own to close down the facility." Koch said Walmart will thoroughly clean the store and test all its employees.
Last week, a Walmart Supercenter in Worcester, Mass., was ordered to close by the city health director, city officials said. Of nearly 400 employees and others who work in that building, 81 tested positive for the virus, a Walmart spokesman said Tuesday. That store reopened Tuesday morning, he added.
Customers at both stores had complained that social distancing and other safety measures Walmart implemented weren't being observed, local media reported.
A Walmart store in Colorado temporarily shut down April 23 after an employee died from the virus-related illness, as well as her husband and a contracted store security guard.
Two employees at a Chicago-area Supercenter died from covid-19 in March.