Florida hits record for new infections
US again tops the list for most daily infections with 66,000 cases
Florida shattered the national record for a state’s largest single-day increase in Covid19 cases yesterday, as the United States’ failure to contain the world’s worst outbreak worsens.
Deaths from the virus have also been rising in the US, especially in the South and West, though still well below the heights hit in April, according to a recent Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
“I really do think we could control this, and it’s the human element that is so critical. It should be an effort of our country. We should be pulling together when we’re in a crisis, and we’re definitely not doing it,” said University of Florida epidemiologist Dr Cindy Prins.
Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, called mask-wearing in public, which has been met with resistance in some US states, “absolutely essential”.
Giroir, the assistant secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, told ABC’s that “if we don’t have that, we will not get control of the virus”.
President Donald Trump wore a mask in public for the first time on Sunday, something Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said showed he has “crossed a bridge”.
Pelosi told CNN’s that she hopes it means the President “will change his attitude, which will be helpful in stopping the spread of the coronavirus”.
In hard-hit Houston, Texas, two top Democratic officials called for the nation’s fourth-largest city to lock back down as area hospitals strained to accommodate the onslaught of sick patients.
In Florida, where parts of Walt Disney World reopened on Sunday, 15,299 people tested positive, for a total of 269,811 cases, and 45 deaths were recorded, according to state Department of Health statistics. California had the previous record of daily positive cases — 11,694, set last Thursday.
The numbers come at the end of a record-breaking week as Florida reported 514 fatalities — an average of 73 per day. Three weeks ago, the state averaged 30 deaths per day.
The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, reported another record increase in the number of confirmed global coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period, at more than 230,000.
The UN health agency said the United States again topped the list
Florida cases