"Don't hesitate to continue wearing a face mask if you feel more comfortable doing so," the report quoted Apple as saying in the internal email. "Also, please respect every individual's decision to wear a mask or not."
The company's decision however comes on the backdrop of COVID-19 infections in the United States which have been on the rise as the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant have spread to account for more than 90% of U.S. infections, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, are even more contagious than their predecessors and have pushed new daily cases above 125,000 and hospitalizations to 6,300. Those are the highest levels since February, though deaths have remained low at about 360 per day, thanks to widespread immunity and improved treatments against the virus.
The subvariants are offshoots of the strain responsible for nearly all of the virus spread in the U.S. this year.
These subvariants have significant mutations from the earliest versions of Omicron and protection from vaccines wanes over time.
