Friday, Alabama and six other US states reported a record increase in coronavirus cases, with Florida’s most populous county having imposed a curfew before Independence Day weekend and Arkansas joining efforts to make it compulsory to wear a mask in public.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alaska, Missouri, Idaho and Alabama all recorded new daily highs in COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Texas has reached a new peak in hospitalizations, with a doctor calling for a “complete lockdown” of the state to control the virus.
The daily count of cases in the United States was 53,483 on Friday evening, below the previous day’s record of 55,405.
The recent surge, most pronounced in southern and western states, alarmed public health officials, who called for caution ahead of a July 4 vacation weekend to celebrate the declaration of independence of the United States in 1776.
North Carolina, for its part, reported 951 hospitalizations and 2,099 cases, two record records.
Bill Saffo, mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina, said many infections have been blamed on large gatherings and predicted a new leap after the holiday weekend when people don’t follow distance guidelines social and masks.
“We know the spread is going to happen. We know that in about two weeks we will see a peak for the weekend of July 4,” Saffo told CNN.
Despite the increase in infections, the average number of daily deaths in the United States has gradually declined in recent weeks, reflecting the growing proportion of positive tests among younger, healthier people who are less prone to serious outcomes .
However, American general surgeon Jerome Adams warned that the impact on deaths of the recent flare-up, which began in mid-June, has yet to be seen. “Deaths are at least two weeks late and can happen even more,” he told Fox & Friends on Friday.
His remarks came hours before President Donald Trump’s trip to Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, where he was to deliver a speech to thousands of supporters, in which he would denounce the “left crowd” and witness a fire fireworks at the monument. depicting four American stone presidents.
The visit drew criticism from Native Americans, who say the remote region is sacred to them, as well as health experts who discourage large congregations.
Trump, whose handling of the pandemic has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, has repeatedly tried to dismiss the jump in cases based on more tests and, again this week, he predicted that the virus would “go away”.
MORE MASKS
Coronavirus cases are on the rise in 37 of 50 US states, including Florida, which had 9,488 new cases on Friday, according to the state health department. On Thursday, the 10,109 cases in Florida set a state record and exceeded the daily peak of any European country at the height of the epidemic.
Proof that the surge is not simply due to the expansion of tests, the percentage of tests returning positive in Florida reached 16%, against 4% a month ago, according to a Reuters analysis. The World Health Organization says that a rate above 5% is cause for concern.
In this context, the mayor of the county of Miami-Dade, Carlos Gimenez, imposed an unlimited night curfew starting from Friday and suspended the reopening of places of entertainment such as the casinos and strip clubs. Earlier this week, Miami-Dade and neighboring Broward County, the two most populous counties in the state, demanded residents wear face coverings in public.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson authorized cities and towns across the state on Friday to issue a “model order” requiring the wearing of face covers if desired, becoming the last Republican to give in to pressure on the issue.
The move came a day after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered face masks to be worn in most public places, reversing his position following an alarming increase in infections in the state, which on Friday marked a new hospital record at 7,652.
Owais Durrani, a resident of the University Hospital in San Antonio, said that almost all patients entering the emergency room were positive for COVID-19 – even those admitted for unrelated problems such as gallbladder infections biliary.
“We, in my opinion, have to go into a complete lockdown and we’re always going to see an increase in all of these measures for two to three weeks, and then maybe we can move on,” he said.