Spike in Florida deaths casts pall over U.S. fight to contain coronavirus

Congress has passed about $3 trillion in aid including enhanced unemployment benefits to blunt the pain of lockdowns. Senate Republicans announced on Monday a $1 trillion coronavirus aid package hammered out with the White House, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell touted as a "tailored and targeted" plan to reopen schools and businesses, while protecting companies from lawsuits.

Florida reported a record one-day rise in coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, and cases in Texas passed the 400,000 mark, stoking fears the United States was losing control of the outbreak and adding pressure on Congress to pass another massive aid package. A spike in infections in Florida along with Texas, Arizona and California this month has overwhelmed hospitals and forced a U-turn on steps to reopen economies after the end of lockdowns put in place in March and April to slow the spread of the virus.

Florida, the third-most populous U.S. state and a prized destination for beach-goers and retirees, had 191 coronavirus deaths in the prior 24 hours, the highest single-day rise since the start of the epidemic, the state health department said. Texas, the second-most populous state, added more than 6,000 new cases on Monday, pushing its total to 401,477, according to a Reuters tally. Only three other states - California, Florida and New York - have more than 400,000 total cases.

The widening outbreak has pushed the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, closer to the 150,000 mark just over three months before a Nov. 3 election in which President Donald Trump is seeking a second term in the White House. The national death toll rose to 148,446 on Monday, with more than 4.3 million confirmed cases, according to the latest Reuters tally.

The surge in cases in Florida prompted Trump last week to cancel his Republican Party's nominating convention events in Jacksonville in late August, and Major League Baseball has postponed some games in its truncated delayed season after a number of Miami Marlins members tested positive for the virus. There is, however, a glimmer of hope in the data from Texas, where the state health department reported that current hospitalizations due to COVID-19 fell on Monday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said there were signs the recent surge could be peaking in hard-hit states like Florida and Texas while other parts of the country may be on the cusp of growing outbreaks. "They may be cresting and coming back down," Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC's "Good Morning America" program regarding the state of the outbreak in several Sunbelt states.

Fauci said there was a "very early indication" that the percentage of coronavirus tests that were positive was starting to rise in other states, such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. Fauci has become a lightning rod for some supporters of President Donald Trump who accuse the 79-year-old health official of exaggerating the extent and severity of the U.S. outbreak and playing down possible treatments.

BATTLE IN CONGRESS In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo added Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to a list of places whose travelers must quarantine for 14 days when visiting New York. Thirty-one other states are on the list, which was unveiled last month.

New York was one of the early epicenters of the U.S. outbreak, which first surfaced in China late last year and has now killed more than 654,000 people worldwide. The rise in U.S. deaths and infections has dampened early hopes that the country was past the worst of an economic crisis that has decimated businesses and put millions of Americans out of work.

The U.S. Congress on Tuesday was locked in difficult talks over another coronavirus aid package to help American families and businesses recover from the crisis. Congress has passed about $3 trillion in aid including enhanced unemployment benefits to blunt the pain of lockdowns.

Senate Republicans announced on Monday a $1 trillion coronavirus aid package hammered out with the White House, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell touted as a "tailored and targeted" plan to reopen schools and businesses, while protecting companies from lawsuits. But the proposal sparked immediate opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats decried it as too limited compared with their $3 trillion proposal that passed the House of Representatives in May. Some Republicans called that one too expensive.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, described the Republican proposal as a "non-starter," telling reporters that it provided zero support for state and local governments hardest hit by the epidemic. The Republican proposal would give many Americans direct payments of $1,200 each, provide billions in loans to small businesses and help schools reopen. But it would slash the current expanded unemployment benefit from $600 per week in addition to state unemployment to $200 per week. The enhanced unemployment benefit expires on Friday.

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