Governors have reinstated some restrictions on businesses as new daily coronavirus cases skyrocket.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday that bars will be shut down and restaurant capacity will be capped at a lower occupancy as a spike in coronavirus cases across the state has fueled a rising number of hospitalizations and driven the coronavirus positivity rate above 10%.
“As I said from the start, if the positivity rate rose above 10%, the state of Texas would take further action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” Abbott said.
Abbott scaled back restaurant capacity from 75% down to 50%. He also shut down outdoor activities such as river rafting and banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless local officials approve. Bars, which were permitted to operate at 50% capacity, were ordered to close at noon on Friday.
“At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” he said. “We want this to be as limited in duration as possible. However, we can only slow the spread if everyone in Texas does their part.”
Texas saw another record number of new cases Thursday — 5,996 — as well as hospitalizations, with 4,739. The hospitalization number set a record for the 14th consecutive day.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases continued to increase in Florida. Health officials reported 8,942 new infections Friday, eclipsing a previous single-day record of 5,511 reached on Wednesday.
Florida announced Friday that bars must be closed immediately. Florida’s Secretary of the Department of Business & Professional Regulation Halsey Beshears issued the decision just three weeks after reopening.
While Arizona’s new daily case counts are growing by the thousands, Gov. Doug Ducey has not pulled back on plans to reopen the state. From Thursday to Friday, new cases jumped about 3,400, increasing the total number of cases in the state to at least 66,400. Deaths also increased from Thursday by 45, making the total number of deaths exceed 1,500.
Nationally, 39,327 new infections were reported by state health departments on Thursday, overtaking the previous record set Thursday.
In Friday’s coronavirus task force press briefing, the first in weeks, Vice President Mike Pence struck an optimistic tone. “We’re in a much better place,” than earlier in the pandemic, he said, adding that it’s “very encouraging news” that about half of all new cases in Florida and Texas are in young people under 35.
Because younger people are more likely to experience mild symptoms with better outcomes, Pence said, “the fact that we are finding more younger Americans who’ve contracted the coronavirus is a good thing.”
Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci implored people in Friday’s task force briefing to take personal responsibility for social distancing and to follow guidance from state and local health officials.
“A risk for you is not just isolated to you,” he said. “Because if you get infected, you are part, innocently or inadvertently, of propagating the dynamic process of a pandemic.”
He said that while the majority of young people getting infected may not exhibit symptoms or get seriously ill, they put older or more vulnerable people at risk: “If you get infected, you will infect someone else … and then ultimately, you’ll infect someone who’s vulnerable.”
Consumer spending in the United States rebounded 8.2% in May, more than double the prior all-time high on records dating from 1959, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday. The Commerce Department report suggests that consumers are eager and able to spend money on lasting items, such as cars, despite historically high unemployment. However, the gains reported Friday are tenuous as surges in coronavirus cases threaten to further damage the economy and erase progress made thus far to recover from months of business closures.
A majority of the public thinks that the U.S. is reopening the economy too quickly, according to a new opinion poll. An ABC News/Ipsos survey finds that 56% of people in the U.S. feel that the pace of the reopening is too fast, while 29% said the pace was about right, and 15% said it was too slow. Coronavirus cases have surged recently in parts of the U.S., leading governors in New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Utah to pause the reopening of their economies. The poll also finds that 34% of people in the U.S. said they were very concerned that they or someone they knew would be infected with the coronavirus, and 43% said they were somewhat concerned.
President Trump reversed himself Thursday regarding his call for a slowdown in coronavirus testing. He described his comments last Saturday at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as “sarcastic.”
At Tulsa, Trump told the crowd, “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people. You’re going to find cases. So, I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.'”
When asked on Tuesday about whether he was joking, Trump replied, “I don’t kid.” But on Thursday, he said in an interview with Sean Hannity that “sometimes I jokingly say, or sarcastically say, if we didn’t do tests, we would look great. But you know what? It’s not the right thing to do.”
Spanish virologists found traces of the coronavirus in Barcelona wastewater that was collected in March 2019, suggesting that the virus appeared much earlier than scientists thought, Reuters reported. The University of Barcelona team found the virus first on Jan. 15, 2020, 41 days before the first case was reported there. Dr. Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration said it was too early to draw a conclusion from the single sample.
