Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez imposed an indefinite night curfew beginning Friday
Alabama and six other US states reported record increases in coronavirus cases on Friday as Florida’s most populous county imposed a curfew before Independence Day weekend and Arkansas joined a effort to compel wearing masks in public.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alaska, Missouri, Idaho and Alabama recorded new daily highs in cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Texas reached a new peak for hospitalizations, with a doctor calling for a “complete shutdown” in the state to control the virus.
The daily US case count stood at 53,483 late on Friday, below the previous day’s record of 55,405.
The recent increase, most pronounced in the southern and western states, has alarmed public health officials, who called for caution ahead of a July 4 holiday weekend to celebrate the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776.
North Carolina, for example, reported 951 hospitalizations and 2,099 cases, both records.
Bill Saffo, mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina, said many infections were due to large gatherings and predicted a new leap after the holiday weekend, as people ignored guidelines on social distancing and masks.
“We know the spread is going to happen. We know that in about two weeks we will probably see an increase from the weekend of July 4,” Saffo told CNN.
Despite the increase in infections, the average daily death count in the United States has gradually decreased in recent weeks, reflecting the increasing proportion of positive tests among younger, healthier people who are less prone to severe outcomes.
However, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned that the impact on deaths from the recent surge, which started in mid-June, had yet to be seen. “The deaths are delayed by at least two weeks and may be delayed even further,” he told “Fox & Friends” on Friday.
His comments came hours before a trip by President Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where he was expected to deliver a speech to thousands of supporters in which he will face the “mafia on the left” and see a fireworks show. at the landmark. representing four American presidents in stone.
The visit has drawn criticism from Native Americans, who say the remote area is sacred to them, as well as from health experts who discourage large congregations of people.
Trump, whose handling of the pandemic has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, has repeatedly tried to rule out the jump in cases based on more evidence and again this week predicted that the virus “would go away.”
More masks
Coronavirus cases are on the rise in 37 of the 50 US states, including Florida, which had 9,488 new cases on Friday, according to the state health department. Florida’s 10,109 cases on Thursday set a record for the state and were more than the daily peak of any European country at the height of the outbreak there.
Evidence that the increase is not simply due to expanded testing, the percentage of positive tests in Florida has reached 16%, up from 4% a month ago, according to Reuters analysis. The World Health Organization says that a rate above 5% is worrisome.
In that context, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez imposed an indefinite night curfew beginning on Friday and halted the reopening of entertainment venues such as casinos and strip clubs. Earlier this week, Miami-Dade and neighboring Broward County, the state’s two most populous counties, required residents to cover their faces in public.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson on Friday authorized cities and towns across the state to enact a “model ordinance” requiring the use of face covers if they so choose, making him the last Republican to yield to pressure on the issue. .
The move came a day after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered facial masks to be worn in most public places, reversing his stance after an alarming surge in infections in the state, which on Friday marked a new record of hospitalizations at 7,652.
Owais Durrani, a resident of the San Antonio University Hospital, said that almost all the patients who entered the emergency room tested positive for COVID-19, even those admitted for unrelated problems, such as gallbladder infections.
“We, in my opinion, need to go into a full block and we will still see an increase in all those metrics for two to three weeks and then maybe we will turn a corner,” he said.
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