Coronavirus updates: Texas, Florida and Arizona reopenings fueled explosion

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Here are some significant developments:

The rolling seven-day average for daily new cases in the United States reached a record high for the 27th day in a row, climbing to 48,606 on Sunday, according to The Washington Post’s tracking. Coronavirus-related hospitalizations rose to their highest levels to date in Arizona and Nevada.
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in California’s Los Angeles County have increased by 32 percent in three weeks as the number of daily cases trends upward. The full state has reported a record seven-day average of cases for 19 straight days.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), whose state was battered by the virus in April, called for a national mask-wearing requirement.
The University of Washington reported that at least 121 students have tested positive for the virus and that 112 of them lived in fraternity houses near the Seattle campus. The university’s medical school has erected a pop-up testing site near the school’s Greek Row.

Frustration about the pandemic response has mounted among local leaders, who say they have had to grapple with conflicting orders and frequently changing guidelines from governors and the White House as they try to curb sharply rising infections.

After Texas reported another single-day record for new coronavirus cases over the weekend, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) told CNN’s “State of the Union” that there won’t be enough medical personnel to keep up with the spike in cases if the rate of increase continued unabated in his city.

“If we don’t change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun,” he said, adding that intensive care units in the city could be overflowing within 10 days. He said he was not sure that Texas needed a statewide shelter-in-place order but that he wanted the authority to impose one locally.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) echoed Adler’s concerns. The hospitals in his city face staffing shortages as demand for ICU beds increases exponentially, he said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“In fact, if we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly, in about two weeks, our hospital system could be in serious, serious trouble,” Turner said. Demand for testing has also outstripped the city’s capacity, he said, and the positivity rate has soared from 10 percent a month ago to 25 percent recently.

In an interview with ABC News’s “This Week,” Hidalgo said she had been stripped of authority to issue stay-at-home orders in Harris County, as she did in the early weeks of the outbreak, after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) decided to move forward with an aggressive reopening plan in the spring. All she could do now was issue “recommendations,” which were nowhere near as effective, she said.

“As long as we’re doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we’re always going to be chasing this thing, we’re…