Live Coronavirus News: U.S. Suffers Another Record Daily Caseload

As new cases reach another record in the U.S., some states stall on reopening.

The United States on Thursday reported more than 40,000 new coronavirus cases, a record total for the second straight day, as a nationwide sense of urgency grew and caseloads soared in Southern and Western states that were far removed from the worst early outbreaks.

In an apparent sign of that urgency, White House officials said that the coronavirus task force planned to reconvene on Friday for its first briefing in nearly two months. The last briefing took place on April 27.

Thursday’s record came as at least four states — Alabama, Alaska, Montana and Utah — reported their largest daily totals.

California, where stay-at-home orders were imposed particularly early in the pandemic, surpassed 200,000 total cases on Thursday, as its number of infections doubled over the past month. That is the second highest total for any state, though California’s per capita infection rate remains far lower than New York’s.

In some Southern and Western states, the virus has overwhelmed hospitals and forced officials to stall on plans to lift virus-related restrictions. On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said that he did not intend to move to the next phase of reopening, while Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas paused his state’s reopening process and moved to free up hospital space for coronavirus patients.

The new nationwide totals confirmed the resurgence of the virus, which led to lockdowns that started in mid-March. Before this week, the country’s largest daily total was 36,738 on April 24, according to a Times database.

And in a stark reminder of what officials still don’t know about the scope of the outbreak, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Thursday that the number of Americans who have been infected with the virus is most likely about 10 times the 2.4 million cases that have been reported.

Younger people are making up a growing percentage of new cases in cities and states where the virus is now surging, a trend that has alarmed public health officials and prompted renewed pleas for masks and social distancing.

“What is clear is that the proportion of people who are younger appears to have dramatically changed,” said Joseph McCormick, a professor of epidemiology at UTHealth School of Public Health in Brownsville, Texas. “It’s really quite disturbing.”

In Florida, there have been more than 10,000 new cases over the past two days, bringing its total to more than 114,000. Orange County, home to Orlando, is averaging 353 new cases a day, compared with 73 two weeks ago. And across the state, long lines have returned at testing sites that just a few weeks ago were seeing limited demand.

The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos Giménez, has said that all plans to move forward are on pause. Beaches, malls and hotels are open, as well as restaurants at 50 percent capacity, but concert halls, public pools, massage and tattoo parlors are not.

“We’re not opening up bars, we’re not opening up nightclubs,” Mr. Giménez said Wednesday. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

New Delhi and three Indian states have collectively reported about two-thirds of the country’s more than 490,000 cases, according to a New York Times database. On Thursday, the government reported 16,922 new cases, a single-day record.

As of Friday morning, more than 15,000 people had died from Covid-19. And in particularly struggling areas, hospitals have run out of beds, forcing patients to cram into corridors.

In New Delhi, which has more than 70,000 cases, officials said that teams of health care workers planned to visit every household and to conduct blood tests on anyone who exhibited coronavirus symptoms.

The exercise is scheduled to begin on Saturday and end by July 6. Each three-person team is expected to cover at least 50 of the city’s roughly 4.5 million households per day.

In other news from around the world:

• The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, defended the agency’s response to the outbreak while taking pointed questions from members of the European Parliament. Peter Liese, a European Parliament member from Germany, said Dr. Tedros should apologize for not calling for a travel ban early in the outbreak, which Dr. Tedros said that the W.H.O. was not empowered to do.

• Officials in South Africa — where the national caseload of more than 118,000 is the highest on the continent — published new measures on Friday to ease restrictions that had been in effect since late March. Among other things, people will be allowed to leave home to go to work, buy food, and attend a place of worship in their neighborhoods.

• Starting on Saturday in Egypt, restaurants, cafes and mosques will gradually reopen after three months of lockdown that exacted a punishing economic toll on the country’s 100 million citizens. Restaurants will operate at 25 percent capacity and close by 10 p.m., and mosques and churches will stay shut for weekly prayers, the busiest time of the week.

• The United Nations Mission in South Sudan said on Friday that 53 of its personnel had tested positive for the virus since the country recorded its first case in early April. The mission has almost 20,000 peacekeepers from 73 countries who are protecting civilians, assisting humanitarian aid and investigating human rights abuses related to the violence that has engulfed the country since 2013.

• In Europe, a surge of more than 1,500 infections within days has dealt a sudden blow to Germany’s efforts to reopen the country, calling into question the durability of what had widely been considered a success story.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced a new partnership with the United Arab Emirates to cooperate in the fight against the virus, but he was contradicted hours later when the Emirates issued a much more muted statement, announcing what it described as an agreement between two private Emirati companies and two Israeli companies to develop technology to fight the virus.

• Mexico’s finance minister, Arturo Herrera, said on Thursday that he had tested positive. Mr. Herrera is part of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s inner circle, and was seen in a video standing next to the president on Monday at the National Palace, where both men have their offices.

• In South Korea, the city of Daegu has filed a lawsuit seeking at least $83 million in damages from a church that was an epicenter of the country’s outbreak. More than 40 percent of the country’s nearly 13,000 coronavirus patients have been members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus or linked to them. The city has accused the church of hampering the government’s disease-control efforts by not fully disclosing its number of worshipers.

A Russian ransomware group whose leaders were indicted by the Justice Department in December is retaliating against the U.S. government, many of America’s largest companies and a major news organization, identifying employees working from home during the pandemic and attempting to get inside their networks with malware intended to cripple their operations.

Sophisticated new attacks by the hacking group — which the Treasury Department claims has at times worked for Russian intelligence — were identified in recent days by Symantec Corporation, a division of Broadcom, one of the many firms that monitors corporate and government networks.

In an urgent warning issued Thursday night, the company reported that Russian hackers had exploited the sudden change in American work habits to inject code into corporate networks with a speed and breadth not previously witnessed.

Ransomware allows the hackers to demand that companies pay millions to have access to their own data restored.

In other news from around the United States:

• The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act — a move that could bring a permanent end to the health insurance program known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

• Nearly 1.5 million workers filed new claims for state unemployment insurance last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was the 14th week in a row that the figure had topped one million.

• Congressional leaders are in the final stages of vetting Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead a bipartisan oversight commission to scrutinize the programs created by the $2.2 trillion stimulus law in March, according to a person familiar with the plans.

• The Trump administration made more than a million stimulus payments worth about $1.4 billion to dead people in a rush to pump money into the economy this year, the Government Accountability Office said.

• New York City is on track to enter Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan on July 6, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, which would allow indoor dining and personal-care services, like manicures, tattooing and waxing, to resume with social-distancing limits.

• In Texas, Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, ordered businesses to require customers and employees to wear face masks. The order, which goes into effect on Friday, comes days after a similar policy went into effect in neighboring Dallas County.

• North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Dan Forest, said he planned to sue Gov. Roy Cooper over his decision a day earlier to extend the state’s emergency orders and his mandate that state residents wear masks. Mr. Forest — a Republican who will face Mr. Cooper, a Democrat, in the November election for governor — accused his opponent of overstepping his authority.

• The N.F.L. canceled its annual Hall of Fame Game, an exhibition scheduled for Aug. 6, so players and coaches grappling with restrictions related to the pandemic could have more time to prepare for the regular season, which, for now, is still set to begin Sept. 10.

Britain may close its beaches after crowds flock to the coasts.

Britain could close its beaches if the hordes that have descended on coastal areas recently cause a new flood of coronavirus cases, the country’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Friday, a day after tens of thousands of people headed to resorts in southern England on the hottest day of the year so far.

In Bournemouth, 110 miles south of London, the authorities said they were appalled by scenes of overcrowding, as thousands of beachgoers defied restrictions to gather in groups of more than six people, scorning social-distancing rules.

The huge influx resulted in widespread illegal parking and lengthy traffic jams, and authorities denounced the excessive drinking, fights, and illegal camping. “We are not in a position to welcome visitors in these numbers now,” said Vikki Slade, leader of the Bournemouth local authority. “Please do not come.”

Mr. Hancock said he was reluctant to close the beaches because people had been through “a pretty tough lockdown,” but he cautioned that he would take action if the behavior prompted a new wave of infections.

Mr. Hancock’s warning comes as the authorities have urged against large gatherings during the pandemic. Early Friday, objects were thrown at police officers in London as they tried to disperse an illegal outdoor music party, just a day after 22 police officers were wounded as they responded to an unauthorized crowd in another part of the city.

Another pause for Hollywood’s plans.

Hollywood is postponing its planned comeback. Again.

“Mulan,” a $200 million live-action Disney movie, and WarnerMedia’s $205 million “Tenet” were supposed to revive moviegoing by rolling out late next month — the first big releases from Hollywood since theaters shut down in March. But Warner on Thursday pushed back “Tenet” to Aug. 12 because of climbing coronavirus infections in much of the United States. Underscoring how quickly market conditions are changing, “Tenet,” directed by Christopher Nolan, last shifted dates two weeks ago.

Disney is considering a new release plan for “Mulan,” according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private process. Disney declined to comment.

Theater chains like AMC, Regal and Cinemark have announced plans to reopen most of their locations by mid-July. But it is increasingly unlikely that cinemas in New York will be open by then; Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that he was slowing down plans to reopen theaters, gyms and shopping malls. Also spooking studios: China, the No. 2 film market after North America, recently canceled a plan to reopen some theaters.

The summer blockbuster season, which runs from the first weekend in May until Labor Day, delivered $4.32 billion in ticket sales last year. So far this year, ticket sales since early May stand at about $2.4 million, largely from drive-in theaters showing classics and independent films. Some theater companies face bankruptcy if ticket sales and concessions are not generating adequate revenue by Thanksgiving, analysts say.

Studios have been making money by selling unreleased movies to streaming services like Netflix or making them available for video-on-demand rental.

Australia’s largest supermarket chains are reintroducing national limits on toilet paper purchases, after a small surge of virus cases around Melbourne led to panic buying and door-to-door testing with help from the military.

The reaction follows 10 days of double-digit increases in recorded infections for the state of Victoria, which includes Melbourne, with cases concentrated in a handful of the city’s suburbs.

Most states and territories in Australia have gone days and weeks without a new infection, and there are only about 530 active cases in the country. But with the trends heading up after steady declines for weeks, concerns about another outbreak are rising, putting pressure on retailers and public health officials.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the situation needed to be seen in context. With around 1 million cases being reported globally each week, he said, Australians should not feel the need to rush out and stock up on toiletries.

“Stop it,” he said on Friday. “It’s ridiculous.”

“We remain on track, the curve remains flat,” he added. “But where you get bumps and when you get outbreaks, then you need to manage them and you need to respond to them, and that is exactly what is happening.”

As part of that effort, more than 1,000 public health workers are going door-to door in the two suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak, with residents offered free testing.

Military medics are also hitting the streets to increase capacity.

Rediscovering personal ways to communicate.

Writing letters and journal entries has helped people connect meaningfully and find comfort during this period of isolation, grief and unrest. Here are some tips on doing it well.

Reporting was contributed by Brooks Barnes, Ronen Bergman, Julie Bosman, Damien Cave, Choe Sang-Hun, Emily Cochrane, Abdi Latif Dahir, Melissa Eddy, Manny Fernandez, Ben Hubbard, Mike Ives, Sarah Mervosh, Elian Peltier, Nicole Perlroth, Alan Rappeport, Amanda Rosa, David E. Sanger, Nelson D. Schwartz, Mitch Smith, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, David Waldstein, Declan Walsh and Sameer Yasir.