CCP Virus Causes Waffle House to Close 365 Locations Across US

A Waffle House in a file photograph. (Illustration - Shutterstock)

Waffle House has closed 18 percent of its stores amid the CCP virus pandemic, the company announced Tuesday.

The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.

The 365 locations that have been shuttered are located in a slew of states, including Mississippi, Florida, and Illinois. They were labeled “temporarily closed.”

The chain’s other 1,627 stores remain open.

Waffle House’s announcement came six days after it said that all of its stores were open, at least for to-go orders.

In a statement on March 15, the company said it was doing its best to keep its nearly 45,000 workers employed. Stores implemented a number of measures in response to the spread of the virus, including sanitizing all service items like salt and pepper shakers after every customer visit and regularly sanitizing front door handles, restrooms, jukeboxes, and other areas and items.

The company asked customers to help by allowing workers to clean and sanitize tables before sitting down. People who were sick were asked to stay home.

Waffle House is known for staying open even in the worst of times. The chain’s location indicator was used by disaster experts, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as a way of assessing how destructive storms like hurricanes are.

“If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?” former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has said. “That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

The new virus has infected over 55,000 Americans but the country’s mortality rate remains low at around 1.4 percent, with 802 deaths reported so far.