Mississippi House Speaker tests positive for coronavirus

JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn says he has tested positive for the coronavirus as state health officials report more than 200 new infections and five deaths linked to the pandemic.

Gunn, a Republican, said in a video posted Sunday to Facebook that he got tested because he had been in close proximity to another member of the House who tested positive.

“I felt like I needed to go get myself tested just because I had been with this person and this morning was informed that I too have tested positive for COVID,” Gunn said. “I feel very fortunate that I don’t really have very many symptoms and feel fine.”

Gunn said he called everyone that he had been in close proximity to recently to let them know of his diagnosis and planned to self-quarantine.

Gunn is the state’s highest-ranking political figure to publicly disclose a positive test for the coronavirus. He did not say who the other House member was. The Mississippi Department of Health posted its latest coronavirus statistics Sunday. The state recorded 226 new cases through Saturday bringing the total number of confirmed and probable infections to 30,900 across the state. Five more people also died from COVID-19.

Elsewhere

MADRID — Authorities in northwestern Spain have ordered the lockdown of a county with a population of 71,000 for fears of a coronavirus outbreak.

Regional authorities in Galicia announced Sunday that movement to and from La Mariña county located on Spain’s northern Atlantic coast will be prohibited starting at midnight. That will run through Friday, two days before the region holds elections.

The decision comes one day after regional authorities in northeast Catalonia locked down an area with over 200,000 inhabitants.

Both lockdowns only allow people to leave the areas for work and other extenuating circumstances.

The small-scale lockdowns come two weeks after Spain ended a national state of emergency that enabled the national government to lockdown the entire country and prohibit travel between provinces or certain areas since mid-March.

Over 28,000 people are confirmed to have died from the virus in Spain.

MEXICO CITY — Residents of the town of Sonoyta, across from Lukeville, Arizona, briefly blocked the main road leading south from the U.S. border over the weekend over fears of coronavirus outbreaks.

Arizona has seen a major upsurge in infections and there were worries about intensified contagion during the July 4 weekend.

Sonoyta Mayor José Ramos Arzate issued a statement Saturday “inviting U.S. tourists not to visit Mexico.”

Local residents organized to block the road with their cars on the Mexican side Saturday.

Video posted by residents showed several travelers complaining that they had a right to cross because they were Mexican citizens. The road is the quickest route to the seaside resort of Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point.

Ramos Arzate wrote that people from the United States should only be allowed in “for essential activities, and for that reason, the checkpoint and inspection point a few meters from the Sonoyta-Lukeville AZ crossing will continue operating.”

DALLAS — Leaders in two of Texas’ biggest cities are calling on the governor to empower local governments to order residents to stay home as the state’s continued surge in confirmed cases of the coronavirus tests hospital capacity.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that he wants Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott to return control to local governments. He says hospitals are facing a crisis and that ICUs could be overrun in 10 days.

In the Houston area, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who is also a Democrat, says a stay-at-home order is needed.

Texas reported its highest daily increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases Saturday with 8,258.

WASHINGTON — Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says if President Donald Trump were to hold a campaign rally in his Trump-friendly state, people will need to wear masks.

Hutchinson says he would expect people to follow his state’s health guidelines by practicing social distancing or wearing masks if unable to do so.

He says he understands the value of having national Fourth of July celebrations such as at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and that there is some “virus fatigue,” but that people should have been wearing face coverings to “set an example.”

Trump won Arkansas in 2016 with over 60 percent of the vote.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, says he’d like to see a national strategy on the coronavirus, including a mask requirement. He says his state is seeing “small spikes in reinfection” from residents coming back from Florida, South Carolina and other virus hot spots, and the U.S. is “as strong as our weakest link right now.”

Trump has recently held campaign-style events in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Phoenix and Washington D.C. where he and many rally attendees didn’t wear masks.

Hutchinson and Murphy spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”