Governors in U.S. South clash with local leaders on masks, stay-at-home orders

The governors of Texas, Florida, and Georgia, where COVID-19 is raging, pushed back hard on Tuesday against local leaders who want to impose tighter restrictions to control the runaway spread of the coronavirus in their areas. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott overruled a county that wants residents to stay home, saying existing measures on wearing masks and social distancing were enough to keep businesses open in the Rio Grande Valley, on the border with Mexico.

In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp squared off against the mayor of his largest city to stop Atlanta from enforcing a mandate that people wear face coverings in public. A court hearing on a lawsuit filed by the governor against Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was postponed after the judge recused herself at the last minute. In Florida, a teachers union is suing Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials to halt his ordered full reopening of classrooms in a few weeks. The state has reported over 10,000 daily new coronavirus cases for six out of the last seven days.

On average last week, 19% of COVID-19 tests came back positive, indicating widespread community transmission in Florida. COVID-19 deaths are up 45% week over week. "I think it's much better today than it was two weeks ago. And I think it will continue to improve," DeSantis said at a briefing on Tuesday, adding that hospitals were seeing plateaus in patient numbers.

About 20% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds are free after hospitals expanded capacity, compared with 15% two weeks ago. The number of currently hospitalized coronavirus patients fell for the first time on Tuesday after rising to record highs for at least nine days in a row, according to state data. Neither Florida nor Georgia have issued statewide mask mandates. In Texas, Abbott initially resisted requiring masks but earlier this month agreed to mandate them in most counties.

In Hidalgo County, where local officials are clashing with the Texas governor over orders for residents to stay home, coronavirus cases have risen 59% in the last week to nearly 13,000 total cases. In just one week, deaths have doubled to over 300, according to a Reuters tally. Mandatory mask wearing, seen by health officials as a relatively easy way to slow the virus spread, has become a hot button political issue among Americans, with many conservatives calling such rules a violation of their Constitutional rights.

The clashes between local leaders and their governors come as coronavirus deaths nationally rise for a second consecutive week and cases climb for a seventh week in a row. With just a handful of California counties reporting 1,285 new cases so far on Tuesday, total cases in the most populous U.S. state climbed above 400,000. That puts California on the verge of surpassing New York - the original epicenter of the nation's outbreak - for the highest number of infections in the country.

At least 16 states have reported record levels of currently hospitalized COVID-19 patients in July, and cases have set single-day records in 32 states this month, according to a Reuters tally. Against this backdrop of rising cases and deaths, as well as falling poll numbers over his handling of the pandemic, President Donald Trump is expected to give an upbeat briefing on Tuesday afternoon, focusing on his accomplishments and positive developments on treatments and vaccines.

The United States has the world's highest number of reported COVID-19 deaths at over 141,000, nearly a quarter of the global total. Congress is negotiating another coronavirus relief bill to help deal with the pandemic and blunt the economic pain it has caused.

(Open https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)