The number of confirmed new coronavirus infections per day in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000.
Florida’s restrictions came after its daily confirmed coronavirus cases neared 9,000, almost double the previous record set just two days ago.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott had pursued up to now one of the most aggressive reopening schedules of any state.
There have been rising deaths and hospitalizations around the country.
States including Arizona and Alabama have been hit hard.
"As we stand here today, all 50 states and territories across this country are opening up, safely and responsibly. But with cases rising, particularly over the past week throughout the south, President Trump directed our task force to brief the American people," Vice President Mike Pence said during the briefing.
Besides Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also attended the briefing.
"As we stand here today, all 50 states and territories across this country are opening up safely and responsibly. But with cases rising, particularly over the past week throughout the south, President Trump directed our task force to brief the American people on several topics."
Vice President Mike Pence started Friday's by announcing that he will travel to Texas, Arizona and Florida next week. Pence said he spoke to the governors of those three states within the past day, and also said that he would hold a call with the nation's governors on Monday.
As for testing, Pence said in the live briefing, “Roughly half of the new cases are Americans under the age of 35, which - at a certain level - is very encouraging news…because, as we know so far in this pandemic, that younger Americans are less susceptible to serious outcomes of the coronavirus.”
Dr. Birx urged people to get tested whereas before when the task force held regular briefings earlier in the year, health professionals told Americans to stay home to stop the spread of the virus. "We have shifted from telling millennials to stay home to telling them to get tested."
undefined
Dr. Fauci went on to say that Americans have "an individual responsibility" to keep themselves safe, as well as a "societal responsibility" to stop the spread of coronavirus to vulnerable people.
"So if you get infected, you will infect someone else, who clearly will infect someone else," Fauci said. "So people are infecting other people. And then ultimately, you will infect someone who's vulnerable. Now that may be somebody's grandmother, grandfather, uncle who's on chemotherapy, aunt who's on radiation or chemotherapy or a child who has leukemia."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
