The Alberta Government rolled out their plan to distribute non-medical facemasks through various drive-thrus starting on Monday, allowing McDonald's, Tim Horton's, and A&W locations to hand out four packs of the masks.

One McHappy customer at our local McDonald's was Ashley, who ate her meal outside along with her two kids. She said handing out free masks is a good way to reduce stress levels for some people during this difficult time.

“It helps some people can’t get a hold of masks, and they want masks, so they are doing their part to make sure people feel safe and protected, especially for people who can’t get them, because there was a shortage or if they don’t know where to go, it’s helpful.”

She says even though our low infection numbers in Central Alberta have people here feeling more comfortable than other places in the province, she admits that she doesn’t always wear a mask in public but still maintains social distancing in more public areas.

“I work in a grocery store and I’m around people all the time wearing a mask, but when it’s small amounts of people like this (her and her two kids outside) I’m not overly concerned.”

The staff at the Lacombe McDonald's with all their public health measure, including masks for staff, barriers in place and plenty of hand sanitizer on hand.

Another McDonald's drive-thru customer, Lorne, didn’t need any masks because his profession provided him with some, but he still agrees it’s a good way to get the masks to the public, in places that have one of these three restaurants anyway.

“I guess it works for municipalities that have places with drive-thrus, but I’m not sure of the process for places that don’t…I know they are offering them, but I didn’t need them today.”

While some Albertans have complained that places are being too liberal with the amount they are handing out, others, including customers and general managers of the stores, are saying that it's not a big deal.

They say that if the masks are free and available, they’ll give out as many as people need, whether you use the drive-thru or come inside the restaurant, which currently has limited seating capacity. 

The McDonald's in Lacombe handles about 1,000 customers a day and handed out over 2,000 masks on Monday alone, which means they will likely run out of their 20,000 non-medical face masks pretty soon.