Walmart will start counting shoppers at the door and limiting how many can enter

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Walmart is limiting the number of customers admitted in its stores.

• Walmart stores will allow no more than five customers for each 1,000 square feet of space.
• Walmart employees stationed at store entrances will count customers and admit them one by one.
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Walmart plans to start limiting the number of customers in its stores to enforce social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Starting Saturday, Walmart stores will allow no more than five customers for each 1,000 square feet of space. The restrictions will keep the stores at roughly 20% of their capacity, the company said. The average Walmart store is about 180,000 square feet. About 900 shoppers would be permitted in a store that size under the new restrictions.

The new limits will be enforced by Walmart employees who will be stationed at store entrances to count customers and admit them one by one.

Walmart has designated a single entrance and a single exit for each of its stores so that all arriving customers will filter through one entryway.

"Once a store reaches its capacity, customers will be admitted inside on a '1-out-1-in' basis," Dacona Smith, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Walmart US, wrote in a blog post.

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