Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Virus on record pace in hot spots
Morgue trucks dispatched to Texas; city in S.C. urges prayer
HOUSTON — The coronavirus kept surging in hot spots around the U.S. on Thursday, with one city in South Carolina urging people to pray it into submission, a hospital in Texas bringing in military medical personnel and morgues running out of space in Phoenix.
Record numbers of confirmed infections and deaths emerged again in states in the
South and West, with hospitals stretched to the brink and fears worldwide that the pandemic’s resurgence is only getting started.
South Carolina reported a record 69 deaths from covid-19, more than double than any other day. The mayor of Charleston asked for spiritual help.
“We do turn to God at a time like this,” Mayor John Tecklenburg said.
Declaring a day of prayer and remembrance in what for centuries has been nicknamed the Holy City for the number of church steeples dotting its colonial skyline, Tecklenburg was surrounded by pastors of various faiths who prayed for the dead, the sick, their families, health care workers, scientists seeking a vaccine and politicians.
Louisiana thought it had contained the virus earlier this year only to again see a resurgence of cases, averaging more than 2,000 new confirmed infections a day over the past week.
Florida reached another ominous record with 156 virus deaths reported Thursday as the state continued to experience a swift rise in cases. The state Department of Health reported 13,965 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 316,000.
Many of the governors leading states with the highest
rising numbers had refused to mandate masks in public or prevented local officials doing so. While a number of them have reversed course — including Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — and at least 25 states now have mask rules.
Texas reported 129 new deaths Thursday, and a third of the more than 3,400 covid-19 fatalities registered there since the pandemic began were reported in the first two weeks of July alone. Health officials also reported more than 10,000 confirmed new cases for the thirdstraight day.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has dispatched 22 morgue trucks to Texas, said deputy press secretary Janet Montesi.
Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo County’s public health authority, said it’s not uncommon for a deceased covid-19 patient to lay on a stretcher for 10 hours in the community’s overcrowded hospitals until the body is picked up and put in a freezer.
“Before someone gets a bed in the covid ICU unit, someone has to die there,” Melendez said.
Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales surveyed the sandy Gulf of Mexico beaches packed with swimmers and sunbathers, just the way they are every summer. Then she went back to her office to order another morgue truck.
“Why won’t people see what’s happening?” Canales said of vacationers thronging the beaches. “It’s nothing but summer fun. They can’t see the stress and strain that our community is under. The danger isn’t real to them.”
U.S. Army medics are being deployed to two counties along the Texas-Mexico border to assist hospitals overrun with new virus cases.
Arizona, meanwhile, has been so hard hit by the virus, the medical examiner’s office in metro Phoenix has also gotten portable storage coolers and ordered more to handle an influx of bodies.
GEORGIA MASK FIGHT
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp is suing Atlanta’s mayor and City Council to block the city from enforcing its mandate to wear a mask in public and other rules related to the pandemic.
Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, in a suit filed in state court late Thursday in Atlanta, argue that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has overstepped her authority and must obey Kemp’s executive orders under state law.
“Governor Kemp must be allowed, as the chief executive of this state, to manage the public health emergency without Mayor Bottoms issuing void and unenforceable orders which only serve to confuse the public,” the lawsuit states.
Kemp on Wednesday clarified his executive orders to expressly block Atlanta and at least 14 other local governments across the state from requiring people to wear face coverings.
Kemp’s order was met with defiance Thursday by Bottoms and some other mayors, who said they would continue enforcing the order.
In Oklahoma, the president of the Oklahoma Education Association called Thursday for mask requirements and other safety measures in schools, warning that teachers will otherwise not return to classrooms for in-person teaching.
In addition to requiring and providing masks, the state must provide personal protective equipment, hand sanitizers, building cleaning supplies, touchless thermometers, and guidance on when schools should shut down in the event of an outbreak or teachers are unwilling to return, said education association President Alicia Priest.
Spokespersons for the governor and the state education department did not immediately return messages for comment.
And in Tulsa, city leaders have adopted an ordinance requiring masks be worn in most public places while Oklahoma City councilors are to vote on a similar plan today.
The Tulsa City Council voted 7-2 Wednesday night to require people 18 and older to wear face coverings in places such as grocery and retail stores, churches, restaurants, bars and public places.
The vote came hours after Gov. Kevin Stitt announced he tested positive for the coronavirus and is isolating at home. Still said he is not considering a statewide mask mandate.
MEASURES IN MISSOURI
In Missouri, St. Louis County will impose limits next week on youth sports amid virus outbreaks among players, the county executive announced Thursday.
Teams will be banned from playing other teams, they’ll be restricted to groups of 10 people or fewer, and spectators won’t be allowed, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said.
St. Louis officials also are considering whether to reinstitute some restrictions.
Meanwhile, state officials are encouraging tourism in the state.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday announced $15 million in grants to help the tourism industry, which was stymied by the pandemic.
Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri health department, said he’s comfortable both with out-of-state visitors traveling to Missouri and state residents vacationing outside the state as long as they social-distance, wash their hands and wear masks.
Parson has said he will not issue a statewide order requiring face coverings. But several cities are mandating them in an effort to reduce virus transmission. Among them is Springfield, where an ordinance took effect Thursday.
Also Thursday, the Boy Scouts of America announced it was postponing next year’s National Jamboree in West Virginia. The increasing number of virus cases and the pandemic’s persistence and unpredictability make it impossible for the Boy Scouts to comply with its “Be Prepared” motto, said the announcement on the organization’s website.
LAWMAKERS WEIGH IN
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday compared President Donald Trump to “the man who refuses to ask for directions” as she pleaded with the White House to seek input from the nation’s scientific leaders to reverse the rise in cases and deaths.
The Democrat from California urged Trump to invoke the full power of the Defense Production Act to boost much-needed supplies for coronavirus testing and treatment as a weary nation battles the outbreak.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is poised to release the GOP’s $1 trillion coronavirus relief package as soon as next week. That plan is a counteroffer to the sweeping $3 trillion proposal that House Democrats approved in May, before the latest spike in coronavirus cases and hot spots.
On Thursday, McConnell’s proposed liability protection was sent to the White House for review. It’s a five-year shield for “schools, colleges, charities, and businesses that follow public-health guidelines, and for frontline medical workers,” according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press.
It also “limits liability for new products, such as types of PPE, if they meet certain FDA requirements,” according to draft.
This would be the fifth virus rescue bill since spring. Such an unprecedented federal intervention has occurred as Congress races to provide a comprehensive national strategy to try to bring the pandemic under control.
TOURIST HOT SPOTS
Americans heading overseas were causing consternation in Ireland, amid fears that some were ignoring the government’s requirement that they self-isolate for 14 days after arrival. The Irish Post cited restaurant owners who complained they had no way of knowing if American visitors had completed the two-week quarantine.
In Spain, in a move designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus and shake off Mallorca’s reputation as a party hub, regional authorities ordered the closure Thursday of all establishments along “Beer Street” and “Ham Street,” as the popular party areas near the beach of Palma de Mallorca are known, and on another boulevard in nearby Magaluf.
“They are undertaking drastic measures that are typical of other countries, closing entire streets and curtailing the free exercise of private initiative,” Jesus Sanchez, who leads a local business association, told The Associated Press. He blamed “clandestine parties” for some of the images of tourists ignoring virus containment measures.
At a solemn service in Madrid, relatives of about 100 covid-19 victims sat socially distanced with representatives of health workers and other vital professions and with Spain’s king and queen to pay tribute to the dead and those fighting the pandemic.
In an emotional speech, Hernando Calleja said he was sharing the pain of the loss of his brother Jose Maria, a wellknown journalist and writer in Madrid.
“Let’s not forget that the coronavirus was and continues to be a cold, cruel and wrecking executioner,” Calleja said at the ceremony at Madrid’s Royal Palace.
RECORDS ABROAD
Another European tourism hot spot, Greece, lifted a ban on flights from Britain on July 15 and on Thursday welcomed the first arrivals with random testing at Athens airport.
In France, which has seen new outbreaks, Prime Minister Jean Castex said masks would be mandatory in closed public places as of next week — sooner than Aug. 1 as previously announced. One of the Catholic Church’s holiest sites, Lourdes, held its first-ever online pilgrimage to mark the anniversary of claims by 19th-century girl Bernadette Soubirous that the Virgin Mary appeared to her there.
More than than 13.7 million people have been infected worldwide and over 580,000 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Brazil, which hit at least 75,000 confirmed deaths Wednesday, was poised to report 2 million confirmed cases Thursday. The country has recorded more than 1,000 daily deaths on average in a gruesome plateau that has yet to tilt downward.
India’s record daily increase of nearly 32,700 cases pushed its total close to 1 million and led authorities to reimpose a three-day lockdown and night curfew in the popular western beach state of Goa, two weeks after it was reopened to tourists.
The state’s top elected official, Pramod Sawant, said people there were flouting social-distancing rules and not wearing masks. Nearly 40,000 people have been fined in the past two weeks for not wearing masks.
Israel also registered a daily record of confirmed coronavirus cases, and a new nationwide lockdown appeared imminent.
Hezi Levi, the Health Ministry director general, told Army Radio that he would be pushing at a meeting Thursday for more stringent movement restrictions, including a possible nationwide lockdown on weekends. Information for this article was contributed by Aritz Parra, Mike Corder, Elaine Kurtenbach, Nomaan Merchant, Jeffrey Collins, Jeff Amy, Ben Nadler, Haleluya Hadero and Lisa Mascaro of The Associated Press; and by Susan Warren, Rachel Adams-Heard and Daniel Flatley of Bloomberg News.