The U.S. death toll from Covid-19 surpassed a grim new milestone of 250,000 lives lost as New York City’s public school system – the nation’s largest – called a halt to in-classroom instruction, citing a jump in coronavirus infection rates.

Chicago’s mayor issued a month-long stay-at-home advisory, and Detroit’s public schools called a halt to in-person instruction to curb the spread of the coronavirus as more than a dozen U.S. states reported a doubling of new Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks.

Americans were back on the road after more than two months of coronavirus lockdowns that kept them homebound, with beach-area traffic tripling since the low point in mid-April.