• As cases spike in Sun Belt, states back off reopening,
PHOENIX — California closed bars, theaters and indoor restaurant dining all over again across most of the state Wednesday, and Arizona’s outbreak grew more severe by nearly every measure as the surging coronavirus crisis across the South and West sent a shudder through the country.
The run-up in confirmed cases has been blamed in part on “knucklehead behavior” by Americans not wearing masks or obeying social-distancing rules as economies reopened over the past two months.
“The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in dramatically expanding closings he announced over the weekend.
The shutdown announcement, which came just ahead of Fourth of July weekend, which could fuel the spread of the virus, applies to 19 counties encompassing nearly threequarters of California’s 40 million people, including Los Angeles County.
Confirmed cases in California have increased nearly 50% over the past two weeks, and hospitalizations have gone up 43%. Mr. Newsom reported nearly 5,900 new cases and 110 deaths in 24 hours.
With one of the biggest weekends of the summer approaching, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised Americans to wear face masks at the beach.
Despite the resurgence of coronavirus across the U.S., President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday about the virus as if it were a nuisance he hopes will eventually just go away.
“I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus,” he said in an interview with Fox Business. “I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”
Soaring numbers across the Sunbelt have raised fears that other states could see the same phenomenon if they reopen too, and that people from the South and West could spread the virus to other regions.
Some states and cities that seemed to have tamed their outbreaks, including Colorado, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey, hit pause or backtracked on reopening plans for bars and restaurants as they watched the crisis unfold from afar.
The virus in the U.S. is blamed for more than 2.6 million confirmed cases and over 127,000 deaths, the highest toll in the world, by Johns Hopkins’ count. Worldwide, the number of infections is put at more than 10.6 million, with over a half-million deaths.
The real numbers in the U.S. and globally are believed to be significantly higher, in part because of limited testing and mild cases that have gone unrecorded.