Tag Archives: President Donald Trump

Factbox: White House staff, top Republicans who have tested positive for COVID-19

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A growing number of White House staff and senior Republicans have tested positive for COVID-19 since President Donald Trump revealed he had contracted the respiratory disease.

The infections have roiled the presidential campaign, now in its final month, rattled financial markets and slowed the work of Congress, with the Senate vowing to delay any votes now that three members of the Republican majority have tested positive.

Several people who met with the president last week said they had since tested negative, but it can take days for someone who has been exposed to the virus to develop symptoms or to test positive. Below is a list of people close to Trump who have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days:

KAYLEIGH MCENANY

White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said in a statement on Monday that she has tested positive for COVID-19, adding that she is experiencing no symptoms and “had no knowledge of Hope Hicks’ testing positive before her briefing last Thursday.”

HOPE HICKS

Hope Hicks, a close adviser to the president who often traveled with him on the Air Force One and Marine One presidential aircraft, tested positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus on Thursday. The disclosure of her infection, first reported by Bloomberg, set off a wave of news.

MELANIA TRUMP

Donald Trump, who had carried out a busy week of campaigning starting with the Sept. 26 introduction of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett at a packed White House ceremony, said on Friday that he had his wife, Melania, had tested positive.

RONNA MCDANIEL

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, who has had frequent contact with Trump, said on Friday she tested positive for the virus and was quarantined at home in Michigan.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON

Ron Johnson, who heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a spokesman said on Saturday.

SENATOR THOM TILLIS

Senator Thom Tillis tested positive for the coronavirus, he said in a statement on Friday. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tillis positive test results comes after he attended a Sept. 26 Oval Office meeting with Barrett, who Republicans are seeking to steer onto the Supreme Court.

SENATOR MIKE LEE

Mike Lee, another senator on the Judiciary Committee, also said he tested positive on Friday. He was present at the Oval Office meeting on Sept. 26.

BILL STEPIEN

Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, also tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday and will work from home, according to a senior campaign official.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Saturday that he was checking himself into a hospital as a precautionary measure after testing positive for coronavirus.

KELLYANNE CONWAY

Kellyanne Conway, a former counselor to Trump, said in a post on Twitter that she had tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. She attended the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony for Barrett.

NOTRE DAME PRESIDENT JOHN JENKINS

University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, who also attended the White House ceremony, said on Friday that he had tested positive.

NICHOLAS LUNA

Assistant to Trump Nicholas Luna, a “body man” who accompanies the president day and night, has tested positive, according to a source familiar with the situation.

(Reporting by Katanga Johnson and David Lawder; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

Top Israeli rabbis, and U.S. envoy, pray for Trump recovery

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s top rabbis prayed for U.S. President Donald Trump to recover from COVID-19 on Monday, invoking his name in a Jewish holiday ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Support for Trump, who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. Embassy to the city, is strong among Israelis, who mark the Jewish high holidays this year while under a second coronavirus lockdown.

“May He who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon send healing to Donald John, son of Fred,” intoned Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site.

“May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion for him, restore him, cure him, strengthen him, enliven him,” he said, reciting the traditional prayer for those in ill health, to amens from Israel’s two chief rabbis and U.S. ambassador David Friedman.

They were attending a ceremony, coinciding with the Sukkot festival, in which members of Judaism’s priestly caste bless the public in a chant at the Western Wall.

With Israel struggling against a surge in coronavirus cases, attendance was drastically pared down this year.

Heading to the event as an invited guest, Friedman tweeted that it was “normally attended by thousands, today just 20”.

“I will pray for God’s mercy and healing upon all those throughout the world afflicted with Covid-19,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean)

As cold weather arrives, U.S. states see record increases in COVID-19 cases

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – Nine U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases over the last seven days, mostly in the upper Midwest and West where chilly weather is forcing more activities indoors.

On Saturday alone, four states – Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin – saw record increases in new cases and nationally nearly 49,000 new infections were reported, the highest for a Saturday in seven weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming also set new records for cases last week.

New York is one of only 18 states where cases have not risen greatly over the past two weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. However, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday he is moving to shut non-essential businesses as well as schools in nine neighborhoods, starting on Wednesday. The lockdown would require the governor’s approval.

Health experts have long warned that colder temperatures driving people inside could promote the spread of the virus. Daytime highs in the upper Midwest are now in the 50’s Fahrenheit (10 Celsius).

Montana has reported record numbers of new cases for three out of the last four days and also has a record number of COVID-19 patients in its hospitals.

Wisconsin has set records for new cases two out of the last three days and also reported record hospitalizations on Saturday. On average 22% of tests are coming back positive, one of the highest rates in the country.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor mandated masks on Aug. 1 but Republican lawmakers are backing a lawsuit challenging the requirement.

North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin have the highest new cases per capita in the country.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is one of several prominent Republicans who have tested positive for coronavirus since President Donald Trump announced he had contracted the virus.

Because of the surge in cases in the Midwest, nursing homes and assisted-living facilities operated by Aspirus in northern Wisconsin and Michigan are barring most visitors as they did earlier this year.

Bellin Health, which runs a hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said last week its emergency department has been past capacity at times and doctors had to place patients in beds in the hallways.

The United States is reporting 42,600 new cases and 700 deaths on average each day, compared with 35,000 cases and 800 deaths in mid-September. Deaths are a lagging indicator and tend to rise several weeks after cases increase.

Kentucky is the first Southern state to report a record increase in cases in several weeks. Governor Andy Beshear said last week was the highest number of cases the state has seen since the pandemic started.

State health experts have not pinpointed the reason for the rise but point to fatigue with COVID-19 precautions and students returning to schools and colleges. Over the last two weeks, Kentucky has reported nearly 11,000 new cases and has seen hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients rise by 20%.

(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Trump says will leave hospital on Monday, ‘Don’t be afraid of Covid.’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he will leave the U.S. military hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19 later on Monday, adding that he felt “really good.”

“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” he said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

‘Anyone can get it,’ Trump supporters shocked at diagnosis, unwavering in support

By Ernest Scheyder and Nick Brown

WARREN, Ohio/BANGOR, Penn. (Reuters) – As Americans digested the news on Friday that President Donald Trump had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, some of his backers expressed surprise that he hadn’t been safe from infection and said their support for him was not diminished.

“It was shocking,” said Maranda Joseph, 43, of Warren, Ohio, who has 12 Trump flags in her front yard festooned with skeletons and other Halloween decorations. “To see he has it wakes you up a bit. Anyone can get it, even the president.”

Trump tweeted early Friday morning that he and his wife, Melania, had tested positive after a whirlwind campaign week in which he visited seven states and debated with his Democratic rival in the November election, Joe Biden.

The Republican has played down the risks of the virus and COVID-19 disease that has killed more than 207,000 Americans, drawing criticism for his erratic messaging and recent resumption of campaign rallies where his supporters often are crowded together and don’t wear masks.

Officials in Minnesota and New Jersey – two of Trump’s stops this week – urged anyone who had attended his events to be tested.

Joseph, a homemaker, said she thinks more people should wear masks at future Trump rallies, though she added that she would attend one herself once the president recovers.

“People with compromised immune systems should stay home,” she said.

Some in Warren expressed skepticism that Trump even has the virus, citing Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s positive test earlier this year before he tested negative later the same day.

“There’s so many false positives out there. Has Trump had a second test yet?” asked Sharon Tice, 70, who sells Trump T-shirts and other memorabilia. “But if he does have it, it could influence the way he sees things.”

Some Republicans said the diagnosis could actually help the President.

“Trump will prove to the American people that you can survive COVID,” said Cathy Lukasko, auxiliary chair of the Trumbull County, Ohio, Republican Party.

More than 7.2 million infections have been reported in the United States since the pandemic began seven months ago.

Lukasko was running the party’s offices on Friday without a mask, handing out signs for Trump and local Republican candidates.

“This might be a nice little break for him,” she said.

The reactions reflected a longstanding pattern – Americans are largely settled in their views on Trump. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday showed that Biden holds a 9 point lead over Trump heading into the November election, the same margin in six of the last seven national polls, a period of time that has seen the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Tuesday night’s chaotic debate.

In Bangor, Pennsylvania, Trump supporter Jack Cooper, a 70-yaer-old retired electrician, said the president was paying the price for underestimating the virus’s dangers. He said, however, that would not stop him for voting for Trump again.

“He’s getting a taste of his own medicine,” said Cooper, who lives in a crucial swing district. “He was fooling around without a mask in big crowds. It’s like bringing a pit bull into a big crowd — something is gonna happen.”

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder and Nick Brown, writing by Scott Malone; editing by Grant McCool)

White House initiated contact tracing after aide tested positive, released Trump results within hour

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Contact tracing was put into place at the White House immediately after Trump aide Hope Hicks tested positive for coronavirus, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Friday.

“Immediately there was contact tracing that was put into place and all of the necessary procedures,” McEnany said. She said Trump got his positive result on Thursday night. “Within an hour, we put out that information to the American people.”

“It’s safe to say that you’ll be seeing and hearing from the president as he moves forward with his working schedule,” she added. “We’re exploring a number of different ways to do that, but he wants to talk to the American people.”

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Diane Craft)

‘Full steam ahead:’ Senate Republicans to push court nominee despite Trump’s COVID-19 status

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s plan to begin confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Oct. 12 remain unchanged, despite President Donald Trump’s positive COVID-19 test result, a Senate aide said on Friday.

“Full steam ahead,” the aide to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham responded to Reuters, when asked if the hearing schedule for hearings to begin on Oct. 12 could change.

Graham spoke to Trump on Friday morning and said the first thing Trump asked was about was the Senate’s plan for his nominee’s confirmation, the aide added.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also said the Senate would advance Barrett’s confirmation but sounded a cautious note about the potential impact of COVID-19.

“I think we can move forward. Our biggest enemy, obviously, is … the coronavirus, keeping everybody healthy and well and in place to do our job,” McConnell told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.

McConnell described the Senate’s decision on whether to confirm Barrett as being “front and center for the American people” and said the Senate would act after a committee recommendation due Oct. 22.

Barrett’s nomination faces fierce opposition from Senate Democrats and will face questions about her judicial philosophy and approach to the law when she comes before Graham’s panel.

Democrats argue the vacancy should be filled after the next president is chosen on Nov. 3, a view shared by a majority of Americans, according to recent national polls. Trump’s Republican allies, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, have vowed to follow a compressed timeline to confirm her before then.

Barrett, seen as a reliable conservative, would replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of gender equality and other liberal causes who died on Sept. 18 at age 87. She previously sat for a hearing when she was appointed by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Chizu Nomiyama)

In battleground Wisconsin, some Latinos feel ignored by Biden

By Tim Reid and Dan Simmons

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Cesar Hernandez says he has made thousands of phone calls since June urging Latinos in the battleground state of Wisconsin to support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

It’s a tough sell, admits Hernandez, especially where he lives on the South Side of Milwaukee, the heart of Wisconsin’s Latino community. He said Biden’s Spanish-language ads on Hulu and Facebook aren’t connecting with the neighborhood’s voters, many of whom would prefer a more personal touch.

“Latinos have seen almost nothing from Biden here,” said Hernandez, 25, who works for the Progressive Turnout Project, a national group working to mobilize Democratic voters. “There is very little enthusiasm for him.”

As the race to the Nov. 3 election enters the home stretch, appeals to Latino voters have taken on new urgency for Biden and incumbent Republican President Donald Trump. Both campaigns are pouring resources into the battleground states of Florida and Arizona, as well as increasingly competitive Nevada, whose large Latino populations could determine the outcome in those states.

Even in Wisconsin, where 87% of the population is white, the state’s 230,000 eligible Latino voters could prove critical. Trump won the state by just 22,000 votes in 2016.

A string of recent polls show Biden ahead in Wisconsin. The polling aggregation website RealClearPolitics has Biden leading Trump by an average of 5.5 percentage points from six polls conducted in September.

Trump has visited the state five times this year. His campaign has opened an office on Milwaukee’s South Side, where authentic taco outlets jostle with bilingual tax preparers and a Puerto Rican barber shop. The windows of the campaign storefront are plastered with Trump signs and its shelves bear merchandise such as “Latinos for Trump” hats.

The Biden campaign said in statements to Reuters that its outreach efforts to Latinos in Wisconsin and nationally were unprecedented in scale.

It said it had a full-time Latino outreach director in Wisconsin and dozens of staff organizing in predominantly Latino communities. It is running Spanish-language phone and text banks and has ads on multiple platforms, including Spanish-language radio and Spanish-language mailers. Dozens of virtual roundtables, rallies and other events targeting the Latino community have been held, the Biden campaign said.

“The campaign has communicated with tens of thousands of Latino voters about the clear choice in this year’s election,” said Jen Molina, Biden’s national Latino media director.

But Reuters interviews with 30 Latino residents and activists on Milwaukee’s South Side suggest those efforts may be falling short, reflecting what some call an “enthusiasm gap” for Biden among Latinos nationwide that has been noted by pollsters and analysts.

Several residents interviewed said the only contact they’ve had with the Biden campaign are phone texts in English soliciting donations. Fifteen of 24 Latino voters interviewed said they would vote for Biden, albeit with little fervor. Some said he was too old and seemed more focused on Black voters and their concerns about social justice.

“It’s like he’s not listening to us,” Hernandez said, adding that many feel Biden is taking them for granted. “We’re not being heard.”

Others blamed the novel coronavirus pandemic. With cases surging in Wisconsin, Biden’s team has stuck to a mostly virtual campaign; plans for a campaign office in Milwaukee’s South Side were scrapped, said Darryl Morin, a Biden campaign volunteer focused on turning out Latino voters.

Trump’s Wisconsin team, meanwhile, has continued door-to-door campaigning and in-person outreach, a strategy that Morin said resonates with Latino voters.

“I completely get why people feel there has been a lack of presence” from Biden’s campaign, Morin said. “Sometimes it’s frustrating the degree we are having to limit the operations. Only one side is continuing to go out in person – the Trump campaign.”

BATTLEGROUND STATE WORRIES

Nationally, Biden leads Trump among registered voters who identify as Hispanics: 53% said they would back the Democrat, while 30% said they would vote for Trump, slightly more than backed the Republican in 2016, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling in September.

But Biden’s 23-point advantage is smaller than the 39-point lead Clinton had over Trump among Hispanic voters on Election Day four years ago.

If his campaign fails to make up that ground, it could prove “disastrous” for Biden in closely contested states with significant Latino populations, said Jaime Regalado, an expert on Latino voters at California State University in Los Angeles.

Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and harsh rhetoric about migrants are widely unpopular with Latinos. Yet polls show many trust him on the economy. In Florida, a must-win state for Trump, he has made inroads with conservative Cuban-Americans with the false claim that Biden and the Democrats are “socialists.” In battleground Arizona, Trump held a “Latinos for Trump” roundtable with voters in Phoenix last month.

The Biden campaign says its virtual events in Wisconsin focused on the Latino community have involved high-profile officials, including Michelle Lujan Grisham, the first Latina Democratic governor of New Mexico. Last month, a virtual bus tour with Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus held an event in Wisconsin.

Biden’s running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, met last month with representatives of Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin’s biggest immigrant-rights group, which has endorsed the Democratic ticket. Voces says it has staff and volunteers working across the state to register 23,000 new voters by Election Day.

SOUTH SIDE MICROCOSM

The South Side of Milwaukee is a microcosm of Biden’s broader struggles.

Jose Vasquez, 71, a community leader, said it didn’t matter how many text messages, virtual events or phone calls the Biden campaign said it has made.

“You can hand out a thousand fliers, but if you’re not knocking on a single door or talking face-to-face with a single person, you have little impact,” he said in an interview.

Vasquez, a retired school principal, said he wants to see more from Biden on issues Latinos care about, such as a visit to Puerto Rico, which still needs massive aid after a 2017 hurricane, or a trip to the southern border with Mexico to discuss immigration reform.

Democrats had planned to hold Biden’s nominating convention in Milwaukee this summer but were forced to host the four-day event virtually because of the pandemic.

SWITCHING TO TRUMP

A third of the two dozen Latino residents interviewed by Reuters in Milwaukee were enthusiastic Trump supporters.

Among them is Mayra Gomez, 41, a lifelong Democrat. The Puerto Rico native said she began looking at the president after receiving an unsolicited Facebook message from a conservative group urging Latinos to break away from the Democratic Party.

Gomez said she was attracted to Trump’s law-and-order message and his economic policies. She said she’ll vote for him in November, and is urging family and friends to do the same.

“Remember, Trump’s not a politician. He’s a businessman,” Gomez said. “What he says may sound funny, but he’s actually speaking the truth.”

The Biden campaign says it is ramping up efforts as the election nears.

On Sept. 26, Todos con Biden, a national coalition of Latino organizers and volunteers working to elect Biden, held its first outdoor event in Wisconsin. At a park on Milwaukee’s South Side, it handed out 500 campaign yard signs.

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Los Angeles and Dan Simmons in Milwaukee; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn in New York. Editing by Ross Colvin and Marla Dickerson)

White House says Trump ‘not incapacitated’, working from isolation; Pence negative

By Jeff Mason

(Reuters) – The White House tried to reassure Americans on Friday that President Donald Trump was still working from isolation, after his bombshell announcement that he had caught the coronavirus threw the administration and presidential race into uncertainty.

Trump, who has played down the threat of the coronavirus pandemic from the outset, said he and his wife Melania had tested positive for the deadly virus and were going into quarantine.

Wall Street tumbled at news of one of the biggest health scares involving an American president for decades, with the S&P 500 plunging more than %1.5 at the opening.

“The president is not incapacitated. He is actually working from the residence,” a senior White House official said.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife tested negative, a Pence spokesman said. The White House official said Pence would work from his own residence and his staff was being kept separated from Trump’s staff “out of an abundance of caution”.

But the official acknowledged that the president’s illness would force him to cancel travel plans with just 31 days left to go until the presidential election. Polls show Trump trailing his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Trump said in a tweet early on Friday morning.

Biden said on Twitter that he and his wife Jill wished Trump and the first lady a speedy recovery. “We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family,” he said.

Trump, 74, is at high risk because of his age weight. He has remained in good health during his time in office but is not known to exercise regularly or to follow a healthy diet.

Trump advisers acknowledged that they would have to rip up their plans for the final weeks of the election campaign. Trump has held in-person rallies with supporters who mainly decline to wear masks, and has mocked Biden for avoiding such events.

“It’s so early to kind of know what’s going to happen but clearly it changes the dynamic from us being able to travel and show enormous energy and support from the rallies, which has been part of our calculation,” a Trump adviser said.

Trump’s positive test also means that others at the highest levels of the U.S. government have been exposed and may have to quarantine, too. A White House official said early on Friday that contact tracing was under way.

Trump’s physician, Sean Conley, said he expected the president to carry out his duties “without disruption” while he recovers.

“The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence,” Conley wrote in a memo that was distributed to the press.

Leaders around the world wished Trump a speedy recovery.

On Thursday night, shortly after Trump predicted the pandemic’s end was in sight, news broke that Hope Hicks, a top adviser and trusted aide, had tested positive for the virus. Hicks traveled with the president on Air Force One on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Trump flew to New Jersey after White House officials learned of Hicks’s symptoms, and attended a fundraiser at his golf club and delivered a speech. Trump was in close contact with other people, including campaign supporters, at a roundtable event.

CHANGE IN THE RACE

The president’s condition is likely to bring the pandemic back to center stage in the race, after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shifted the campaign’s focus.

Trump, who has been criticized for questioning the efficacy of wearing a face covering, produced a mask from his pocket in his first debate against Biden on Tuesday and said, “I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks.”

The White House has had previous coronavirus scares. Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Miller, tested positive earlier this year and suffered symptoms before recovering. A military valet also came down with the virus.

But the White House lowered its precautions as Trump sought to project a return-to-normalcy message this summer. Temperature checks of everyone entering the White House complex stopped, and while coronavirus tests continued for people who came into close proximity to Trump, others on campus were not tested.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano and Aishwarya Nair; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by William Mallard, Michael Perry and Peter Graff)

Wisconsin faces COVID-19 crisis, positive test rates rise in New York hot spots

By Jonathan Allen and Lisa Shumaker

NEW YORK (Reuters) – COVID-19 trends are all moving in the wrong direction in Wisconsin, where U.S. President Donald Trump will hold rallies over the weekend, while the pandemic’s early U.S. epicenter of New York state reported an uptick of positive coronavirus tests in 20 “hot spots” on Thursday.

New cases of COVID-19 rose in 27 out of 50 U.S. states in September compared with August, with an increase of 111% in Wisconsin, according to a Reuters analysis.

Wisconsin is also dealing with a troubling rise in serious COVID-19 cases that threaten to overwhelm hospitals.

“Our emergency department has had several instances in the past week where it was past capacity and needed to place patients in beds in the hallways,” Bellin Health, which runs a hospital in Green Bay, said in a statement. “Our ICU (intensive care unit) beds have also been full, or nearly full, during the past week.”

Health officials in the state said public gatherings have become even more dangerous than earlier in the pandemic, and Governor Tony Evers issued an emergency order easing licensing rules to increase the number of healthcare workers able to deal with the mounting crisis.

“We are seeing alarming trends here in Wisconsin, with today seeing our highest number of new cases in a single day, and yesterday seeing our highest death count,” Evers said in a statement.

Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer at the Wisconsin department of Health Services, said the state’s outbreak started in younger people and has now spread throughout the community.

“Public gatherings of any kind are dangerous right now, more so than they have been at any time during this epidemic,” he told CNN on Thursday.

In New York, which grappled with the world’s most rampant outbreak earlier this the year, officials said they were worried about clusters of cases in 20 ZIP code areas across the state, where the average rate of positive tests rose to 6.5% from 5.5% the day before.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy encouraged residents to download onto their smartphones a new voluntary contact-tracing app, COVID Alert, they launched on Thursday. The app uses Bluetooth technology to alert users if they have recently been near someone who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Many of New York’s 20 hot spots – half of which are in New York City – include Orthodox Jewish communities. Cuomo said he talked to community leaders about enforcing social distancing measures.

“A cluster today can become community spread tomorrow,” Cuomo said on a briefing call with reporters. “These ZIP codes are not hermetically sealed.”

He implored local authorities to increase enforcement measures. “If they’re not wearing masks, they should be fined,” Cuomo said.

Wisconsin health officials are urging residents to stay home and avoid large gatherings ahead of Trump’s weekend rallies in La Crosse and Green Bay in the run up to the Nov. 3 election.

An indoor Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in July likely contributed to a subsequent rise in cases there, city health officials said.

“This spike we’re seeing in Brown County, Wisconsin should be a wakeup call to anyone who lives here that our community is facing a crisis,” Dr. Paul Casey, medical director of the emergency department at Bellin Hospital, told CNN.

Cases, hospitalizations, positive test rates and deaths are all climbing in Wisconsin, according to a Reuters analysis.

Over the past week, 21% of coronavirus tests on average came back positive and have steadily risen for five weeks in a row from 8% in late August.

The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has doubled in the last two weeks hitting a record of 646 on Wednesday, the same day Wisconsin reported its biggest one-day increase in deaths since the pandemic started with 27 lives lost.

Beyond the Midwest, western states were also facing spikes in coronavirus cases. Montana on Friday reported a record increase in cases for the second day in a row and had a record number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Bill Berkrot)