TEXAS AND FLORIDA: IF YOU WANT TO DRINK, DO SO AT HOME

Texas and Florida close bars for a SECOND time while Arizona tells residents to stay home as states battle record spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations

 

Daily Mail  

June 26, 2020

 

Texas and Florida are forcing bars to close again and Arizona is telling residents to stay home as the states continue to see record spikes in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. 

 

The abrupt actions reflect how the hotspot states are now scrambling to contain outbreaks less than two months after aggressively reopening and becoming the first in the United States to lift lockdown measures.  

 

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott shut down bars again on Friday and scaled back restaurant dining to 50 percent capacity - the most dramatic reversals yet as confirmed coronavirus cases surge. 

 

Meanwhile, Florida officials also announced on Friday that the consumption of alcohol at bars across the state would now be prohibited as daily infections soared to nearly 9,000 - shattering the daily tolls from the previous two days. 

 

The United States, already the hardest-hit country in the world with close to 125,000 deaths, never fully emerged from its first COVID-19 wave. 

 

Following a weeks-long plateau, new cases are once again back to where they were in April. The number of infections across the US rose by nearly 40,000 on Thursday in the largest single-day increase since the pandemic started.