Twitter users shared a variety of opinions on Friday about fast-food restaurant employees being told not to wear masks roughly months after the federal COVID-19 public health emergency came to an end.

At the center of the debate was an apparent flyer sent out to In-N-Out Burger locations outside the chain’s home state of California, announcing new health guidelines. The Daily Wire reached out to In-N-Out Burger seeking comment on whether the guidelines are real.

A screenshot of the supposed flyer says that starting on August 14 no masks “shall be worn in the Store or Support facility unless an Associate has a valid medical note exempting him or her from this requirement,” and those who do get a doctor’s approval must wear a company-provided N-95 mask unless a physician advises otherwise.

The policy is said to apply to associates working in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah, except those “who are required to wear masks or other protective gear as part of their job duties,” and is “subject to local health authority guidelines and regulations.”

Lucky Tran, who has been identified as a “science communicator” working at Columbia University, shared the screenshot on Twitter and encouraged people to reach out to the In-N-Out Burger’s customer service page regarding the chain’s “discriminatory policy banning masks.”

Businesses like In-N-Out burger are banning staff from wearing masks (unless they provide a medical note) pic.twitter.com/OchZl5STIH

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) July 14, 2023

Users reacted with all sorts of commentary, ranging from horror to appreciation.

“Covid is a huge worker’s rights issue, and employers can now forcibly expose low wage workers to a deadly/disabling pathogen,” said Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz. “Meanwhile big leftists/labor organizers have aligned themselves w corporations pushing anti mask, anti public health, far right messaging on covid.”

While some commenters called for people to boycott or sue, Tran said that it was “critical to note In-N-Out isn’t trying this in CA because the state has laws preventing employers from banning masks.” Tran also noted that a recent court ruling in California that determined employers are not legally responsible for COVID spreading from workers to their family members “seems to have emboldened companies to try mask bans in other states without protections.”

Among those to deliver praise of In-N-Out was Twitter account for the conservative group Turning Point USA. “Based,” it said in an approving tweet.

“Interesting way to clear out problem employees,” said criminal defense attorney Marina Medvin. “Fantastic! I hate when customer service people wear masks,” a different user said, “Also of note is the use of ‘him or her’ as these are the only two normal pronouns when referring to people. There’s a reason I love IN N OUT!

“In-N-Out Burger just did the single GREATEST thing I’ve ever seen a business do,” said “The Patriot Voice” account. The tweet also said the guidelines need to be ” the standard moving forward. Masks are not only unnecessary, ineffective, and disgusting…But, it also really hinders customer service when you can’t see the face of a staff member because of their face diaper.”

“In-N-Out has banned their employees from wearing masks unless they have a note from a doctor and the left is losing their woke minds over it,” quipped another.

In-N-Out Burger made headlines during the height of the pandemic when multiple locations in California were shut down by health officials for refusing to check customers’ vaccination status before serving them food.

“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” a spokesperson for the fast-food chain said at the time.

Crime may be a persistent issue across California, but residents in one city are enjoying a dip in criminal activity across multiple categories, and the police chief says he has an answer for why.

Fresno has seen its crime rate drop dramatically this year. Murders dropped 44% from 34 to 19 murders for January 1 to July 11 this year compared to the same period last year, according to Fresno police data.

Shootings are down 11%, rapes are down nearly 20%, robberies are down nearly 11%, commercial burglaries are down nearly 46%, residential burglaries are down 29%, and vehicle thefts are down nearly 26%, according to police.

Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama told Tad Weber of The Fresno Bee that the reason for the crime drop is simple: staffing.

The city has a record number of police officers in the field this year: The police department is currently authorized by the city council to have 900 officers, and 860 of those positions were filled as of July 7, according to the police chief.

“There are a lot of misconceptions going around the country saying more cops does not make a safer city,” Balderrama told the Bee. “That is not true. Since we have added, our crime rate has been significantly reduced. We can focus on certain violent groups, do more outreach, be on more beats. More people call us and give us information we can use to solve crimes.”

Balderrama said that when he took over as police chief in January, 2021, only 632 cops were on the force out of the 838 budgeted positions. On top of that, more than 100 officers were out because of illness during the COVID pandemic, the chief said.

“We were running the city with 530 cops,” Balderrama said.

California as a whole has dealt with rampant crime in recent years.

Violent crime is up 6.1% since 2021, property crime is up 6.2%, and robberies are up 10.2%, although murders have dropped slightly, according to Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta’s 2022 crime report.

Other California cities also struggle with rising homelessness and open air drug use, which frequently comes with more crime.

In San Francisco, for example, overall crime is slightly down this year, but certain types of violent crime are up, according to police data.

Murders in San Francisco are up 10% to 22 murders so far. Robberies are up 15% to 1,150 robberies so far. Car thefts are up 5% to 2,889 thefts.

Meanwhile San Francisco’s homelessness and drug crises are still raging, although overdose deaths have dropped from their all-time high in 2020 during the thick of the pandemic.

In 2022, San Francisco saw 620 fatal drug overdoses, down from 640 overdose deaths in 2021. In 2020, overdose deaths spiked to 725.

Homelessness in San Francisco has only gotten worse since before the pandemic. About 38,000 people are homeless in the Bay Area on a given night, up 35% since 2019.

In Los Angeles, most types of crimes are down except theft, which is up nearly 15% since last year, according to police data.

However, homeless crisis in Los Angeles is up 10% in Los Angeles, according to the 2023 greater Los Angeles homeless count results.

In many California cities, violent crime spiked during the pandemic before starting to dip again.