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Texas governor Greg Abbott has issued an order requiring face masks to be worn in public in the state’s hardest-hit regions and given local governments the authority to limit public gatherings to 10 people. The governor’s order, which marks a stark reversal of his earlier approach to the pandemic, came as Texas recorded 7,915 new infections on Thursday, just under the record 8,076 tallied on Wednesday. The number of new cases nationwide increased by more than 50,000 for the second day in a row and the death total rose above 128,000. “We need to refocus on slowing the spread but this time we want to do it without closing down Texas again,” Mr Abbott said on Thursday. Texas was one of the first states to reopen its economy in May after the nationwide shutdown. But in recent days it has been forced to reverse some of its earlier decisions to relax restrictions, ordering bars to close and banning elective surgeries at hospitals in the state’s biggest cities to free up beds for coronavirus patients. Florida, another state to aggressively relax its lockdown, saw the sharpest uptick in new cases on Thursday and has emerged as a new hotspot. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and a Trump ally, has refused to roll back the state’s reopening plans. But ahead of the July 4 weekend, which has the potential to be a so-called superspreader event, some regions in Florida have issued their own guidelines and restrictions to residents. Mask wearing, or the refusal to wear one, has become a conspicuous sign of ideology in the US. The latest edition of Swamp Notes has more. Coronavirus digest The recent spike in new US coronavirus cases is dismal to observe, writes the FT in an editorial. But the measures taken to combat the surge, it adds, are necessary. The US jobless rate dropped to 11 per cent in June as employers added 4.8m new jobs. While almost every industry increased employment last month, energy was a big outlier. A private survey of China’s services industries surged to a 10-year high last month, indicating an accelerated recovery in activity in the sector as consumer spending rebounds from the country’s long coronavirus lockdown. The UK will begin to dismantle its quarantine policy to allow Britons to travel to as many as 70 countries without having to spend 14 days in self-isolation on their return. Angela Merkel has warned EU member states that the “world is watching” Europe as she urged them to seal a deal on a post-coronavirus recovery fund.