More deaths, more masks, more jitters
Florida sets record for fatalities; Britain, France to require face coverings
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — Florida surpassed its daily record for coronavirus deaths Tuesday and Britain and France announced a requirement for people to wear masks in public indoor spaces, amid rising global worries about a resurgence of the pandemic.
Florida reported 132 additional deaths, topping the previous record for the state set just last week. The figure likely includes deaths from the past weekend that had not been previously reported.
With the virus spreading quickly in the southern and western U.S., one of the country’s top public health officials offered conflicting theories about what is driving the outbreak.
“We tried to give states guidance on how to reopen safely . ... If you look critically, few states actually followed that guidance,” Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a livestream interview with the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Redfield said people in many states did not adopt social distancing and other measures because they hadn’t previously experienced an outbreak. But he went on to say, without explanation, that he didn’t believe the way those states handled reopening was necessarily behind the explosive rise in virus cases. He offered a theory that infected travelers from elsewhere in the country might have brought the virus with them around Memorial Day.
CDC officials said that there are various possible explanations, and that Redfield was offering just one.
In Florida, the new deaths raised the state’s seven-day average to 81 per day, more than double the figure of two weeks ago and now the second-highest in the United States behind Texas. Doctors have predicted a surge in deaths as Florida’s daily reported cases have gone from about 2,000 a day a month ago to a daily average of about 11,000, including a record 15,000 on Sunday. The state recorded 9,194 new cases Tuesday.
Marlyn Hoilette, a nurse who spent four months working in the COVID-19 unit of her Florida hospital until testing positive recently, said hospitals are so desperate for staff to return to work, they are not following guidelines that call for two negative tests first.
“Nurses are getting sick, nursing assistants are getting sick and my biggest fear is that it seems we want to return folks to work even without a negative test,” said Hoilette, who works at Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee. Fla. “It’s just a matter of time before you wipe the other staff out if you’re contagious, so that is a big problem.”
Word of the rising toll in Florida came as Arizona officials tallied 4,273 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Arizona, which became a virus hot spot after Gov. Doug Ducey relaxed stay-at-home orders and other restrictions in May, reported 3,517 patients hospitalized because of the disease, a record high. The state’s death toll from COVID-19 rose to 2,337, with 92 additional deaths reported Tuesday.
Redfield urged Americans to wear masks to help contain the virus.
“At this critical juncture when COVID-19 is resurging, broad adoption of cloth face coverings is a civic duty, a small sacrifice reliant on a highly effective low-tech solution that can help turn the tide,” he and two colleagues wrote in an editorial published online Tuesday by the journal of the American Medical Association.
In Britain, officials announced they will require people to wear masks starting July 24, after weeks of dismissing their value.
“We are not out of the woods yet, so let us all do our utmost to keep this virus cornered and enjoy summer safely,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
French President Emmanuel Macron said masks will be required by Aug. 1, after recent rave parties and widespread backsliding on social distancing raised concerns the virus may be starting to rebound.