11-year-old boy becomes Florida's youngest coronavirus victim as state logs record 10,000 cases in one day

State breaks another single-day record of new Covid-19 cases as Republican-controlled states impose new mandates to curb infections

Florida health officials have reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases in the state, the highest single-day spike in the state since the onset of the outbreak that has infected more than 2.7 million Americans. More than 128,000 patients have died.

The state also saw its youngest Covid-19-related fatality, following the death of an 11-year-old boy in Miami-Dade County, according to state health officials. Florida's death toll has reached more than 3,600.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis – speaking alongside Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting the state on Thursday – has not committed to rolling back Florida's reopening despite surging case numbers.

Despite climbing numbers and worrying hospitalisation rates, Mr Pence claimed that the US is "in a much better place" and that officials don't have to "choose between opening up America and the health of our people."

Florida, with a population of 21 million people, is the second state to record more than 10,000 cases in a single day, next to New York, which has a population of nearly 20 million and saw more than 12,000 cases on 10 April. That state has since contained a rise in cases to 6 per cent, the lowest in the nation, after emerging as a global epicentre amid the pandemic.

Next month, Jacksonville, Florida will host the Republican National Convention, which moved the event from North Carolina following Donald Trump's dispute over distancing and mask requirements. But city officials in Jacksonville issued a mandate this week requiring residents remain physically distanced and wear face coverings in public.

In June, Florida infections rose by 168 percent, or nearly 100,000 new cases, with positive tests spiking to 15 per cent, up from 4 per cent, at the end of May.

Several other states recorded their highest single-day reports of new Covid-19 cases in recent days as the US saw nearly 50,000 new cases on Wednesday, the fifth single-day record within a week.

Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, South Carolina and Tennessee also reported their highest single-day new coronavirus case counts on Thursday.

Governor DeSantis has closed bars and beaches but has not issued a statewide mandate for residents to wear face coverings in public. Several cities have required residents to wear masks in public.

On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered residents to wear face coverings in public as the state reported more than 8,000 new cases on Wednesday, the state's largest spike since the onset of the outbreak.

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

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Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

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• 1/13

  Cheryll Mack, 46, a registered nurse in the emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The Covid-19 spread has affected a lot of livelihood, a lot of people's lives. It has created a crisis, death in general. So I would like to ask not one single person, but all people worldwide, to converge and join the platform that this is something that nobody can fight individually," said Mack.

  Reuters

• 2/13

  Dr Laura Bontempo, 50, an emergency medicine doctor wears her personal protective equipment she uses when she sees patients, while posing for a photograph after a nine-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moments have actually been separating families from patients, there is a no-visitor policy now and taking people away from their loved ones is very challenging," Bontempo said. "I'm used to treating sick patients. I treat sick patients all the time. It's very different knowing that the patient you are treating, is actually a risk to you as well. That's the main difference here. No one who works in hospitals is afraid of treating sick people. Just want to keep staff safe and the patients safe at the same time."

  Reuters

• 3/13

  Ernest Capadngan, 29, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing Covid patients die helpless and without their family members beside them," Capadngan said.

  Reuters

• 4/13

  Martine Bell, 41, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a six-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The hardest thing in all of this, has been taking care of fellow healthcare providers. It really hits home and it's really scary when you see someone that could be you coming in and now you're taking care of them. It's also hitting home that once healthcare providers start getting sick, who is going to be taking care of the public," Bell said. "It's very stressful, everyone is on edge. We don't know who's coming in next, or how sick they're going to be, or if we are going to get a whole bunch of people or if we're not going to get no one. It's a really stressful and just a completely unusual time for all of us."

  Reuters

• 5/13

  Kaitlyn Martiniano, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital. "We have a lot of patients and they are pretty sick right now but we have not yet been hit as hard as New York or Seattle, so I feel like we are very lucky with that so far. Every day you have to just be optimistic." Said Martiniano. "I think the reason that we are not being hit as hard right now is because so many things are closed, and because so many people are staying at home."

  Reuters

• 6/13

  Tracey Wilson, 53, a nurse practitioner in an intensive care unit (ICU), poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn't come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him," Wilson said. "There is a lot of unknowns and with that unknown is a lot of anxiety and stress that we're not used to dealing with."

  Reuters

• 7/13

  Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I think the hardest moment has been the fear that lives within all of us. There is a lot of unknown right now. We fear what's going to happen tomorrow, how the emergency department will look next week when we come in. We have fears about our own colleagues, whether they will fall ill. We also fear that we could be asymptomatic carriers and bring this virus home to our families and our loved ones. There has been a lot of fear over our supplies and whether we'll run out. And then obviously there is the fear that we will see patients and not be able to do everything we normally can to help save patients' lives," Sheehan said.

  Reuters

• 8/13

  Kimberly Bowers, 44, a nurse practitioner in an ICU, poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was a young woman who died and her family wasn't able to be here with her," Bowers said. "I think right now, it's just frustrating and scary just not knowing what comes next."

  Reuters

• 9/13

  Tiffany Fare, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a Covid patient, say goodbye over an iPad, rooms away. That was a tough one, I can't imagine how hard it would be to be saying goodbye, you can't see your loved one and then they're gone," Fare said. "My team has been really great to me. We've worked really well together and we've really come together in this crisis. We don't really know each other, we all come from different units within the same hospital, so for us to come together and work so well as a team, it's been a journey but I think that's what is giving me hope."

  Reuters

• 10/13

  Dr Kyle Fischer, 35, an emergency medicine doctor, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where he works. "Since it's a new virus, we don't have any experience with it. For most diseases I am used to seeing it and taking care of it and this, I don't have any starting place. I know what I'm hearing from New York, I've read all of the papers it seems like, but no one knows what the correct answers are, so there's a huge amount of uncertainty and people are really, really sick. So it's hard to second guess whether or not you are doing the right thing when you think you are but you never quite know," said Fischer.

  Reuters

• 11/13

  Julia Trainor, 23, a registered nurse at a surgical ICU, poses for a photograph after a 14-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was having to put a breathing tube in my patient who could no longer breathe for herself and after the breathing tube went in, we called her family and the husband, of course, couldn't visit her because of visitor restrictions at the hospital. So I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear, as he told her that he loved her so much and then I had to wipe away her tears as she was crying," said Trainor. "I'm used to seeing very sick patients and I'm used to patients dying but nothing quite like this. In the flip of a switch, without the support, they're completely isolated. They're very sick. Some of them recover and some of them don't. But the hardest part, I would think, is them having to go through this feeling like they are alone."

  Reuters

• 12/13

  Lisa Mehring, 45, a registered nurse who works in a biocontainment unit with Covid-19 patients, poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works in Maryland. "Seeing these new moms have babies has been the hardest moment along with having do their pumping for the new moms and them not being able to be with their newborn children, it's hard to think of the family that they are missing," Mehring said.

  Photos Reuters

• 13/13

  Jacqueline Hamil, 30, a registered nurse in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital. "The hardest moment of my shift today, I was in charge, and we had a really sick patient that was in a really, really small room and usually, when we have sick crashing patients, we can have a ton of resources and a ton of staff go in and help with the nurse and the doctors that are taking care of that patient. But due to the patient being ruled out for the coronavirus, we could only have five or six people in the room at a time and putting on all the gowns and gloves and masks and face shields to protect us in case the patient does have coronavirus, it takes a while, so the nurse that was in there, ended up being in the room for you know 6, 7 hours with minimal breaks and it was hard being in charge and knowing that she was stuck in the room and really nothing I could do to help her," Hamil said.

  Reuters

 

 

Arizona also has mandated face coverings in the state after it reported nearly 4,000 cases this week, another largest single-day spike.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert leading the federal response to the crisis, told a Senate committee this week that Americans "need to emphasise the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort to end the epidemic."

"We've got to get that message out, that we are all in this together," he said. "Anything that favours the use of masks -- whether it's giving out free masks or any other mechanism -- I am thoroughly in favour of."

The president also appeared to reverse his public posturing on masks after dismissing federal guidance in April.

"I don't know if you need mandatory," the president told Fox Business Network on Wednesday. "I'm all for masks. I think masks are good."