Apple closes a bunch of stores yet again because of COVID-19
Every Apple store in California is closing as the state sees a massive surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
According to USA Today, all 53 stores around the state are "temporarily closed." Looking up my local San Francisco store on Apple's retail location site I found that the Union Square store in the middle of the city's shopping district was no longer open for in-person shopping.
It's not just California. All stores in Tennessee (there are four there), Utah (three), and Minnesota (four) are closed or or will close in the coming week, ahead of the Christmas holiday. Two stores in Oklahoma will also shutter, along with shops in Anchorage, Alaska and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Apple shut down stores in March as the coronavirus pandemic started to spread. Then, in May, those stores started to reopen, only to have some shut down again in June.
The back-and-forth can be confusing, especially in places like Arizona where store closures kept seesawing based on COVID surges. Now a Chandler, Arizona, location is listed as open but only for online order pickups.
To be sure, you should check on Apple's website to see what the status is before heading to a physical Apple store.
We reached out to Apple for more information on store closure (and reopening) plans worldwide.
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Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
