Record cases in the US as the country heads to the July 4 weekend.
The United States reported nearly 50,000 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, the fifth record of single-day cases in eight days, as the nation falters toward a pandemic-laden holiday weekend that is only getting worse.
Faced with cases reaching new discouraging levels, health officials across the country have urged Americans to cut back on their vacation plans.
Texas reached more than 8,000 new infections, beating its previous daily record set on Tuesday. Arizona added more than 4,700 cases, just below its single-day record set a day earlier. In Georgia, there were more than 2,300 new cases. Florida had more than 6,500.
New outbreaks are emerging in the south and west, and areas that have progressed against the virus are showing signs of a resurgence. Several Republican-led states that moved quickly to reopen this spring at President Trump’s behest are now re-imposing some restrictions.
Arizona, which Trump visited in May and praised for his reopening plans, is now seeing a record number of new cases, and Governor Doug Ducey this week decided to close the state’s water parks and order bars, gyms, and movie theaters. for 30 days On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence visited Arizona to discuss the crisis.
Mr. Pence told Mr. Ducey that the federal government would assist the state with a request for an additional 500 public health people by mobilizing doctors, nurses, and technical personnel.
In Nebraska, state leaders suggested that holiday cookout hosts maintain guest lists to make it easier to trace contacts if there was an outbreak. The Oregon Health Authority warned residents that “the safest option this holiday is to celebrate at home.” And in Los Angeles County, California, where 10,000 new cases have been announced since last Friday, the public health department ordered the closure of the beaches and the cancellation of fireworks shows.
Elsewhere, the pleas were similar: skip the party. Stay at home. Don’t make a bad situation worse.
The pandemic has turned the world into a giant laboratory of competing systems, each with its own way of fighting the virus and mitigating its economic damage. The contrast between Europe and the United States has been particularly sharp.
After the devastating financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, the United States recovered much faster than Europe, which suffered a double recession. This time, many economists say that Europe may have the advantage.
Much of Europe resorted to strict blockades that mostly beat the virus but overturned the economies. In the United States, President Trump has prioritized making the economy move even as infections multiply.
The main reason the United States did well after the financial crisis was the government’s swift response and the flexible nature of the American economy, which quickly fired workers but also hired them again. Europe, with built-in social security, tries to prevent workers from being fired through employer subsidies, making it more difficult to fire and more expensive to rehire.
But this is a different type of collapse, a mandatory shutdown in response to a pandemic, that reduces both supply and demand simultaneously. And that difference creates the possibility that the European response, by freezing the economy in place, will work better this time.
“It is an important debate,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, a senior economist at Bruegel in Brussels and the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “This is not a normal recession, and there are many things you don’t know, especially if the virus comes back.”
Some conservatives and libertarians have made opposition to the masks a political cause, but as cases increase, an increasing number of Republican governors and others in their party are trying to send a different message.
Vice President Mike Pence has abruptly started to wear and recommend masks. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming shared a photograph on Twitter of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, wearing a cowboy hat and pale blue surgical mask, adding the hashtag “#realmenwearmasks”.
Some Republicans have rejected the masks because President Trump refused to wear them and emphasized that doing so was voluntary. “I don’t think I’m going to do it,” he said in April.
But on Wednesday, Trump spoke with less skepticism about the masks. When asked if Americans should be required to wear them, he said he wasn’t sure they should be mandatory, but noted: “I am totally in the guise of it. I think the masks are good. I would wear one if I was in a group of people and I was close. ”
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump said he had worn a mask before, but that it was generally not necessary, because he and anyone allowed near him were regularly tested. “But if I was in a difficult situation with people, I would, absolutely,” he said.
Trump added that he “liked” the way he looked in a mask. “It was a dark black mask,” he said, “and I thought it looked good. It seemed to me to the solitary llanero.
Trump also said he believed the virus was “going to go away,” even as cases are rapidly increasing across the country.
On Monday, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia posted a selfie with a mask decorated with the University of Georgia bulldog mascot. “Wear your mask, Georgia, and go Dawgs!” he wrote. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who regularly wears a mask in public, said in Washington this week that there should be “no stigma” about wearing masks.
The new pleas follow months of misinformation, debate, and confusion over the issue of wearing a mask. At the beginning of the pandemic, government officials instructed Americans not to buy or wear masks. In April, they reviewed that guide and advised that cloth covers for the face be recommended.
Most of the public does not seem to have an aversion to masks. In a New York Times / Siena College survey published last week, 54 percent of people said they always wear a mask when they expect to be around other people, while another 22 percent said they usually wear a mask.
In other parts of the United States:
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Pennsylvania On Wednesday, he joined the growing list of states that require people to wear masks every time they leave home.
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Officials rush to contain a group of coronaviruses tied to a party at a New York The suburb used an unusual legal strategy: issuing subpoenas to partygoers.
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Congress is investigating About a dozen medical laboratories and emergency rooms for possible price increases with virus tests. In letters on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked 11 health care providers, including two laboratories that were the subject of New York Times articles, to submit information on test prices.
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McDonald’s announced a three-week hiatus in his plans to resume dinner service at thousands of locations across the United States amid rising infections.
Thursday will bring a double dose of data on the pandemic’s impact on American jobs. But the numbers, which are expected to be positive, may come just as new clouds are building up.
The Labor Department’s employment report for June, expected to be released at 8:30 a.m. EST, is expected to show the economy added three million jobs last month, according to an average forecast compiled by the provider. of FactSet data.
That would be the second consecutive monthly gain after a catastrophic loss of more than 20 million jobs in April, when the pandemic halted much of economic activity.
But the survey was compiled in mid-June, before coronavirus cases began to emerge in Arizona, Florida, and several other states. More timely data the Labor Department will also release Thursday morning is expected to show that 1.3 million workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week, according to FactSet.
Economists fear the layoffs may accelerate now that California, Texas and other states have begun to order some companies to close their doors again.
“The virus drives the economy,” said Betsey Stevenson, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers to former President Barack Obama, who is now at the University of Michigan. If cases continue to rise as health officials warn, she said, “We are not going to have people go back to work. In fact, we are going to see more people stay home.”
When Michigan bars reopened in June, Tony Hild forgot about face masks, social distancing, and caution and headed to Harper’s, a popular spot in the university town of East Lansing. There was a line outside the door. Inside were 200 people dancing, drinking and screaming about the music.
“It was so crowded and I said, ‘This goes against everything they tell me not to do,'” said Mr. Hild, 23, a college student. “But I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
As people eager to go out at night return to the public after months of confinement, public health experts say the bars, nightclubs, and corner taverns of university towns are becoming new hot spots for the coronavirus, spreading infections in thousands of mostly young adults and adding to growing cases across the country.
Louisiana health officials linked 100 cases of coronavirus to bars in Baton Rouge. Minnesota has tracked 328 recent cases to bars across the state.
And at East Lansing, home of Michigan State University, more than 100 cases have been linked to Harper’s Restaurant and Brew Pub, including Hild. He came down with a sore throat, chest pains and fatigue, and by then, more than a week later, he had already visited four other restaurants.
“I’m definitely sorry to do it,” he said.
Public health experts say the long nights, lack of inhibitions, and shoulder-to-shoulder confines within so many bars, a source of community and relaxation in normal times, now make them an ideal breeding ground for the coronavirus.
The reports were contributed by Livia Albeck-Ripka, Julie Bosman, Ben Casselman, Steven Erlanger, Richard Fausset, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Thomas Fuller, Jenny Gross, Jack Healy, Jesse McKinley, Nelson D. Schwartz, Dionne Searcey, Ed Shanahan, Mitch Smith, Sabrina Tavernise, and Caryn A. Wilson.
