By MICHELLE R. SMITH and FRANCES D’EMILIO

AP – Texas and Florida clamped down on bars again Friday in the biggest retreat yet amid a surge across the South and West that sent the number of confirmed new coronavirus infections per day in the U.S. to an all-time high of 40,000.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all bars closed, while Florida banned alcohol consumption at all such establishments. Together the two states joined the small but growing list of those that are either backtracking or putting any further reopenings of their economies on hold because of comeback by the virus.

Abbott had pursued up to now one of the most aggressive reopening schedules of any state and had not only resisted calls to order the wearing of masks but had also refused until last week to let local governments take such measures.

“It is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” he said. “The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health.”

The Florida agency that governs bars acted after the daily number of confirmed cases neared 9,000, a record that was almost double the previous mark set just two days earlier.

Texas, meanwhile, reported more than 17,000 confirmed new cases in the past three days, with a record high of nearly 6,000 on Thursday. The day’s tally of over 4,700 hospitalizations was also a record.

A number of the hardest-hit states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas, have Republican governors who have resisted mask-wearing requirements and echoed President Donald Trump’s desire to quickly reopen the economy.

Amid the surge, the White House coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Pence, was scheduled to hold its first briefing in nearly two months on Friday afternoon. signaling the adminstration’s recognition that it cannot ignore the alarming increases.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed new infections in the U.S. per day soared past the previous high of 36,400, set on April 24, during one of the deadliest stretches in the crisis so far, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The average number of new cases per day has risen about 60 percent over the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press analysis.

While the increase is believed to reflect, in part, greatly expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the virus is making a comeback, including rising deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country, especially in the South and West.

Deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are down to around 600 per day, compared with about 2,200 in mid-April. Despite the rise in cases, some experts have expressed doubt that deaths will return to that level, because of advances in treatment and prevention and also because a large share of the new infections are in younger adults, who are more likely than older ones to survive.

The virus is blamed for 124,000 deaths in the U.S. and 2.4 million confirmed infections nationwide, by Johns Hopkins’ count. But U.S. health officials said the true number of Americans infected is about 20 million, or almost 10 times higher. Worldwide, the virus has claimed close to a half-million lives, according to Johns Hopkins.

In addition to closing bars again, Abbott scaled back restaurant capacity and shut down rafting operations and said any outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people will need approval from the local government. The move came as the number of patients at Texas hospitals statewide more than doubled in two weeks.

On Thursday, Arizona put on hold any further efforts to reopen the economy, with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey saying the numbers “continue to go in the wrong direction.” Arizona reported over 3,000 additional infections Thursday, the fourth day in a week with an increase over that mark.

Nevada’s governor ordered the wearing of face masks in public, Las Vegas casinos included.

Elsewhere around the world, China moved closer to containing a fresh outbreak in Beijing. Another record daily increase in India pushed the caseload in the world’s second most populous nation toward half a million. And other countries with big populations like Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico grappled with large numbers of infections and strained health care systems.

South Africa, which accounts for about half of the infections on the African continent with over 118,000, reported a record of nearly 6,600 new cases after loosening what had been one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this month.

Italy, one of the hardest-hit European nations, battled to control an outbreak among Bulgarian seasonal crop pickers near Naples.

The governor of the southern Campania region insisted that the workers who live in an apartment complex with dozens of COVID-19 cases stay inside for just over two weeks, not even emerging for food — authorities will deliver groceries to them.

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Smith reported from Providencd, Rhode Island; D’Emelio reported from Rome. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

Kentucky and New York had primaries Tuesday, but the winners of the closest races probably won’t be known until next week. What’s going on?

Get used to it. Slow vote counts and delayed results are a feature of elections during the pandemic and are likely to continue into the general election in November, when many election officials say that, absent a landslide, it won’t be clear who won the presidential election for several days.

“Americans need to learn a little patience,” said Josh Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who studies voter rights. “The fact of not knowing who won right away is the process actually working.”

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP?

In short, more Americans are voting by mail — heeding health officials’ warnings that close contact at polling places could spread the coronavirus — and mail ballots take longer to count.

Officials have to process the ballots before they can count them. Election workers must open them, make sure the voter is registered and filled out the correct ballot, and perform any required security checks such as verifying signatures — all the things that poll workers do when voters show up at neighborhood polling places.

Some states have laws that limit when election officials can even start this process. In New York, election officials don’t start processing mailed ballots until after Election Day. Both New York and Kentucky plan to release the results of mail ballots on June 30, though don’t be surprised if there are further delays.

Another factor is the postmark rules. In both Kentucky and New York, ballots are counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. That means ballots in Kentucky can arrive as late as Saturday while ballots in New York can arrive as late as a week after Election Day.

Finally, if the signatures on the mailed-in envelopes and ballots don’t match the ones on file, voters have the opportunity to “cure” them — prove in person that they were the ones who actually sent them in. That also takes time.

WHY DO WE KNOW SOME WINNERS AND NOT OTHERS?

The Associated Press has long declared winners based on partial election results. But with so many outstanding votes in Kentucky and New York, the AP was only able to declare winners in the most lopsided races. Those races included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s victory in the Republican primary in Kentucky, and New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s win over a challenger in the Democratic primary there.

But most of the high-profile races in each state were more competitive. That’s why the AP did not call a winner on election night in the Kentucky Democratic Senate primary between Amy McGrath and Charles Booker, or in the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District between the incumbent, Rep. Elliot Engel, and Jamaal Bowman.

DOES IT HAVE TO TAKE THIS LONG TO COUNT BALLOTS?

No. Some states have specifically tried to speed up the vote count. Some allow workers to process mail ballots well before Election Day, and that often means they can post the results quickly — even faster than it takes to count in-person votes cast at neighborhood polling places.

But adjusting the timing of the count isn’t the only issue. Sometimes the holdup is about money. Many states are scrambling to revamp their voting systems to prepare for a flood of mail-in ballots. But spending on new equipment, additional staff, and masks and other protective equipment is hard to come by for states with budgets ravaged by the pandemic. Congress is debating whether to send money to states to help, but it’s been tied up and might not arrive soon.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR NOVEMBER?

All the factors delaying the count in Kentucky and New York are present in presidential battleground states this November.

Many are expected to go from a relatively low rate of mail voting to the majority of ballots being cast that way. The key swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania have laws preventing mail votes from being processed early. And Democrats are pushing courts to require states to count ballots that arrive after Election Day, ensuring that a large number of votes wouldn’t be in election officials’ hands when polls close.

That might not matter in a blowout. But the winner in a close presidential race could take days to resolve.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has continued to cast doubt on the propriety of elections held by mail — citing no evidence, but still laying the groundwork to claim voter fraud should he be defeated at the polls.

“This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country,” Trump said on Tuesday. “And we can not let this happen.”

That sort of rhetoric from the president, combined with a drawn-out vote count, could sow distrust among voters.