Back to school, not to normal

son home. She plans to schedule instruction before and after work, with her parents reinforcing education in between.

“The schools’ start date is less than 30 days away. And I don’t feel that there’s a very great plan in place that makes me feel comfortable enough to send my baby to school and then return back to our family dynamic,” Garcia said.

Several states have been reporting record numbers of COVID-19 this week, contributing to a surge in the national death rate. The seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths has risen 34 percent from two weeks ago, while the case count in that period shot up 43 percent.

Texas reported a record 174 new deaths and more than 10,000 additional cases for the fourth consecutive day. California’s nearly 10,000 confirmed cases were its third-highest daily total, and it recorded 130 deaths during a week of seesawing infection numbers.

Florida reported 128 new deaths Friday and 11,345 additional cases.

There were signs across the Sun Belt that the virus was stretching authorities’ capacity to respond. The medical examiner’s office in metro Phoenix has gotten portable storage coolers and ordered more to handle an influx of bodies — reminiscent of New York City at the height of the pandemic there.

In Houston, an 86-person Army medical team worked to take over a wing of United Memorial Medical Center. In California, military doctors, nurses and other health care specialists were being deployed to eight hospitals facing staffing shortages.

Some hospitals in South Carolina also were being squeezed: The number of patients with COVID-19 is increasing rapidly, while nurses and other workers are getting infected when they are off work, said Dr. Wendell James, a senior vice president with Prisma Health who is based in Greenville.

“The majority of the illness we see in our nursing staffs and our support staff is community spread,” he said. “Almost all of it I can’t control.”

In Florida, Miami-area authorities began stepping up enforcement of a mask requirement. Code and fire inspectors have authority to issue tickets of up to $100 for individuals and $500 for businesses not complying with guidelines to wear masks and practice social distancing. Police already had that power.

Shaun Alley, assistant manager of Blue Collar, a Miami comfort food restaurant, said all of the customers eat outside on picnic tables and are asked to wear masks when not eating.

“We tell people flat out: ‘Either you comply or we have the right not to serve you,’ ” he said. “We haven’t had any issues so far.”

At least half of states have adopted requirements for wearing face coverings.

But in Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has banned cities and counties from requiring face coverings. He sued Atlanta late Thursday to prevent it from defying his order, and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she was prepared to go to court to maintain the requirement.

Globally, confirmed cases numbered more than 13.9 million Friday, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, and COVID-19 deaths totaled more than 590,000. WHO reported a single-day record of new infections: over 237,000. Experts believe that the true numbers are even higher.

In sub-Saharan Africa, which already had the world’s greatest shortage of medical personnel, nearly 10,000 health workers in 40 countries have been infected, WHO said.

In Spain, which was one of the hardest-hit countries earlier in the pandemic, health officials asked Barcelona’s 5.5 million residents to stay home as much as possible to stem the virus’s spread.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson charted a different course, announcing that as of Aug. 1, the government was no longer asking people to avoid public transit or work from home.

The U.K.’s official death toll, which stood at more than 45,000, has for several weeks been the highest in Europe.