The United States first recorded more than 70,000 new coronavirus infections in a single day, led by Texas and Florida, which recorded more than 10,000 cases.
The one-day record of 71,229 cases reported Thursday was accompanied by an alarming increase in coronavirus-related deaths. The 977 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours by the Covid Monitoring Project increased from 855 on Wednesday and to a level not seen since the end of the previous outbreak in the northeastern United States two months ago.
Both Florida, with 156 deaths, and Texas, with 129, reported single-day records, which helped increase the number of deaths in the southern states to more than 500 for the first time.
The continued spread of the outbreak in the southern and western United States occurred despite efforts by various states to reimpose strict measures of social distancing. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the United States, called the increase “quite disturbing.”
He said that while some of the new increases in cases are due to Americans ignoring social distancing protocols, he also blamed a handful of state authorities for dismissing federal guidelines on reopening local economies.
“There were some states that when you looked at what the guidelines were. . . some of them went too fast, “Dr. Fauci said in a Facebook interview with Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, adding that such a” jump “on federal guidance was” a recipe for getting into trouble. “
Dr. Fauci did not single out any state for ignoring federal government guidelines.
Despite the continued increase in cases, President Donald Trump did not address the outbreak during a 45-minute White House appearance, where he touted his administration’s efforts to reverse trade regulations.
Florida said it had 13,965 new Covid-19 cases, the second-largest increase in a day for any state in the United States, while a 10,291 increase in Texas was one of the largest. A total of 14 states reported daily increases of more than 1,000 cases, according to the Financial Times analysis of Covid Monitoring Project data.
Texas continued to see elevated levels of hospitalizations. Reported a record of 3,169 coronavirus patients now in ICU statewide; The number of hospitalizations remained stable at around 10,500.
Dr. Fauci said the United States had been less successful than Europe in putting out the outbreak because European governments blocked “90 to 95 percent of the country” and were able to bring their baseline to “a handful of new cases, not hundreds. and thousands. ” .
“[The US] I never really went down to that baseline. We stagnate around 20,000 cases a day before we hit the resurgence, “he said, calling for a” timeout, [but] not necessarily a lock “to try to recover the domestic situation.
Additional report from Courtney Weaver in Washington
