Mickey waved from a distance and visitors wore colourful face masks with mouse ears on the weekend as Florida's Walt Disney World reopened to the public even as the state shattered the United States' record for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases.
Florida's Department of Health statistics on Sunday (local time) said another 15,299 people had tested positive — pushing the total number of cases to 269,811 — and 45 patients died.
If Florida were a country, it would rank fourth in the world for the most new cases a day behind the US, Brazil and India.
California had the previous record of daily positive cases — 11,694, set last Wednesday. New York's worst day was April 15 with 11,571 cases.
The World Health Organization said the US again had the most new coronavirus cases in the world on Sunday, with more than 66,000 countrywide.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney Co welcomed a limited number of guests on Saturday to its two most popular parks at the sprawling Orlando complex, the world's most-visited theme park resort, with safety measures including mandatory masks designed to reassure visitors and reduce the chances of spreading the virus.
Infection rates skyrocket
Testing in Florida has doubled over the past month, going from about 25,000 tests per day to almost 50,000, but the percentage of people testing positive has risen even more dramatically.
A month ago, less than 5 per cent of tests came up positive on a daily average. Over the past week, the daily average exceeded 19 per cent.
About 10.7 per cent of Saturday's 143,000 tests came up positive, with an average age of 38.
"I still think we need to increase our testing a little bit more," said University of Florida epidemiologist Dr Cindy Prins, adding that the state and local health departments should ramp up their contact tracing.
Dr Prins said she was still concerned about large crowds, gyms and some restaurants as being places of mass transmission. Reports of illegal clubs and raves in South Florida were also a worry, she said.
"I really do think we could control this, and it's the human element that is so critical," she said.
"It should be an effort of our country. We should be pulling together when we're in a crisis, and we're definitely not doing it.
"I know people want to live their lives. There have been a lot of other times, people have made those sacrifices in order to benefit our society.
"It's almost like a war effort. That's what we need right now."
AP
