Governors of US states hit hardest by the resurgent coronavirus halted or reversed steps to reopen their economies on Wednesday, led by California, the nation’s most populous state and a new epicenter of the pandemic.
New cases of coronavirus, the illness caused by the coronavirus, shot up by nearly 50,000 on Wednesday, marking the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic.
REOPENINGS WERE STALLED ACROSS COUNTRY
“The spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning,” California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in ordering the closure of bars, bans on indoor dining and other restrictions in 19 counties, affecting over 70% of the state’s population.
The change in California, which was the first US state to impose sweeping “stay-at-home” restrictions in March, will likely inflict more financial pain on the owners of bars and restaurants who have struggled to survive the pandemic.
The epicenter of the country’s coronavirus epidemic has moved from the Northeast to California, Arizona and New Mexico in the West along with Texas, Florida and Georgia.
Texas again topped its previous record on Wednesday with 8,076 new cases, while South Carolina reported 24 more coronavirus deaths, a single-day high for the state. Tennessee and Alaska also had record numbers of new cases on Wednesday.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat whose city was for months at the center of the US outbreak, said Wednesday he would postpone a plan to allow indoor restaurant dining beginning Monday.
“We see a lot of problems and we particularly see problems revolving around people going back to bars and restaurants indoors, and indoors is the problem more and more,” de Blasio told reporters.