KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — Grocery store chain Ben’s Independent Grocer today announced that it will close its Plaza Batai branch in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur tomorrow for one day of deep cleaning, after it was told that a customer who had visited the store two days ago had tested positive for Covid-19.

In a late night announcement today on its Facebook page, the company said: "We have been informed that a shopper who visited us at the Jalan Batai outlet on March 23 at 10am had been confirmed as Covid-19 positive.”

After listing all its precautionary efforts at its outlets, the company added: "On top of these measures, we have taken the decision to deep-clean the whole store as a precaution. We will be open for trade after the deep-cleaning tomorrow.”

"We advise customers to get themselves checked as a precaution,” it added.

The precautionary efforts that the company said it had taken at all its outlets include the conducting of daily temperature checks on customers and employees, daily sanitisation and disinfection of store surfaces, social distancing and having all customer-facing staff wear face masks and gloves.

Yesterday, Ben’s Independent Grocer had in a Facebook post said it is currently not compulsory for its customers to wear face masks when shopping at its outlets, and that it is not imposing a restriction of one person for each shopping party at any one time.

It had also yesterday said that only its frontliners and those who show symptoms such as coughing and sneezing would be required to wear face masks for the safety of everyone else.

The grocery store chain had said however that it has implemented two policies to help protect all customers, namely the dedication of the first operating hour on weekdays for only the elderly and infirm customers to shop, as well as requesting customers to stay at least one metre apart from each other for social distancing purposes.

The company also said yesterday that it would enforce shop capacity limits if the need arises.