Baseball season teeters, while states resist mask rules

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The baseball season descended deeper into crisis Tuesday, states such as Mississippi and South Carolina cast about for more hospital beds, and governors in some of the hardest-hit places staunchly resisted calls to require masks, despite soaring cases of the coronavirus.

Major league baseball suspended the Miami Marlins’ season through Sunday because of an outbreak that has spread to at least 15 of the team's players, and a series of games this week between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies was also called off.

With states like Florida, Arizona and Texas in dire condition, the virus has also been spreading farther north in recent days, causing alarm among public health officials who fear states are not doing enough to avoid catastrophic outbreaks like those in the Sun Belt.

Florida reported 191 new deaths, another one-day high for the state, while Arizona recorded 104, and Arkansas had a single-day record with 20.

The virus is blamed for approximately 4.3 million confirmed infections and about 150,000 deaths in the U.S., according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Globally, more than 16.5 million people have been infected, and more than 655,000 have died.

Republican governors in Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina have all resisted calls to close bars and gyms or issue statewide mask requirements, though local officials have imposed some of their own restrictions.

In Mississippi, nine of the state’s biggest hospitals had no open intensive care beds as of Monday, and officials are considering opening pop-up facilities to provide more space. More than 24 percent of coronavirus tests have come back positive in Mississippi over the past week, the highest rate in the nation and triple the national...