EIGHTEEN US states are in the coronavirus "red zone" for skyrocketing cases and rates of positive tests, a leaked White House document shows.

A day after the country recorded more than 77,000 new cases, more than a third of the 50 states are in the "red zone," prompting national health experts to call for bar closures and face mask mandates.

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) obtained the document, which defines a COVID-19 "red zone" as a state with more than 100 new cases per 100,000 civilians.

The 18 "red zone" states include hotspots like Arizona, Arkansas, Texas, and Florida.

Eleven of the 18 are also in the red for test positivity, meaning more than 10 percent of all statewide coronavirus test results came back positive last week.

The July 14 report includes recommendations that are in line with what experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have advised.

The document, which was prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has been kept secret from the American public.

"The fact that it's not public makes no sense to me," Dr Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Institute, told the CPI.

"Why are we hiding this information from the American people? This should be published and updated every day."

For each of the red zone states, the report recommends that local governments issue mask orders, requiring everyone to cover their faces outside their homes.

It also suggests limiting gym and restaurant to half capacity and to close them down altogether in counties where the positive test rate is higher than 10 percent on a seven-day average.

Governors in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina have all issued face mask requirements in public.

But others continue to balk at the thought, including Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who has refused to issue a mask mandate even as his state has become the new COVID-19 epicenter of the US.

The Sunshine State has lost 9,610 people to the virus, while more than 654,482 people have been infected.

As states struggle to control the spread, the US shattered its daily coronavirus cases record with more than 77,000 new infections.

America’s total infection count has now surpassed 3.5million after a massive new spike of 77,255 cases on Thursday, which broke last week's record of 67,417.

More than 138,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and experts including Dr Fauci warn that case numbers will likely keep surging after Thursday’s record spike.

In a live-streamed conversation with Mark Zuckerburg, Fauci blamed the cases spike on states’ early reopening.

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He told the Facebook CEO he believed some states “jumped over” their COVID-19 reopening guidelines.

“One of the things that became clear is what you look at what the guidelines were for opening, you know the checkpoints that you have to get past before you go into the next phase, some of them went too quickly and jumped over them,” he said.

“That is a recipe for getting into trouble.”

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