This archive report was first published on 12 July 2020.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump finally yielded to pressure and wore a face mask in public for the first time, as the US posted another daily record for coronavirus cases.
Trump donned a dark mask bearing the presidential seal as he visited wounded military veterans at the Walter Reed military hospital in a suburb outside Washington.
"I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place," he told reporters as he left the White House.
Trump's decision to wear a mask comes as the country struggles to contain the spread of the virus. The US posted a new daily record of 66,528 confirmed cases on Saturday night, with the death toll rising by almost 800 to nearly 135,000.
Florida, where nearly one in six of those new infections were recorded, partially reopened the Walt Disney World theme park after four months of shutdown prompted by the virus.
However, the reopening has been met with criticism from top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, who said that Florida had begun reopening before meeting the criteria that would have enabled it to do so safely.
