(CNN)After a muted holiday weekend — which saw both measured celebrations and packed crowds — the country faces a deep coronavirus crisis as cases continue to climb and more hospitals report they’re nearing capacity.
This week marks about two months since many states kicked off their reopening plans — which now officials across the country say came too quickly.
In Florida, officials shut multiple beaches throughout the state hoping to avoid July 4 crowds. The state reported 9,999 new coronavirus cases Sunday, bringing Florida’s total to more than 200,000 infections.
“There’s no doubt … that when we reopened, people started socializing as if the virus didn’t exist,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told ABC This Week.
In Texas, which reported its second highest day of new cases over the weekend, a local leader said the state opened “too early, too much,” driving Houston hospitals to surge capacity in recent days.
“Wishful thinking is neither good economic policy, nor good public health policy,” Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “If we had stayed shut down for longer and opened more slowly, we would probably be in a more sustainable place in our economy.”
The announcement came days after the governor himself — who pushed for one of the most aggressive reopening plans in the country — shut bars back down.
“If I could go back and redo anything it probably would have been the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has told CNN affiliate KVIA.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego told ABC’s “This Week” that her state “opened way too early,” attributing much of the “explosion” in cases to people between the ages of 20 and 44.
Source: US faces a deep coronavirus crisis as cases continue to climb
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