Surgeon general’s grim warning
WASHINGTON: As the US coronavirus death toll neared 10,000 yesterday, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the coming week would be ‘‘the hardest and saddest of most Americans’ lives’’, likening the projected loss of life to ‘‘our Pearl Harbour moment, our 9/11 moment’’.
Joining in that sombre assessment was Dr Anthony Fauci, the Government’s top infectious disease expert, who predicted the dimensions of the outbreak would be ‘‘shocking to some’’ over the next eight or nine days.
‘‘Things are going to get bad, and we need to be prepared for that,’’ Fauci said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
He called on the country to ‘‘just buckle down, continue to mitigate, continue to do the physical separation, because we’ve got to get through this week that’s coming up’’.
President Donald Trump, however, largely eschewed talk of dire coming days, instead expressing hopes for a ‘‘levelling off in the hottest spots’’ of infection.
‘‘We’re orchestrating a massive federal response, unlike anything our country has ever done,’’ he said, later adding: ‘‘We’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.’’
Late Sunday, officials offered hope that in some areas hit hard and early, the coronavirus wave might be cresting.
New York City is the national epicentre of the outbreak, its medical system staggering under a critical caseload and its funeral directors struggling to cope, but Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state’s daily death toll had dropped slightly.
Even so, Cuomo said it was too soon to know if the slight easing marked a downward trend or was merely a ‘‘blip’’.
Flareups of Covid19 were in evidence elsewhere in the country — in New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan, and in Louisiana, whose governor warned that ventilator capacity would soon be exhausted.
In Europe, the picture was mixed. Deaths were still climbing in the United Kingdom but Italy said its daily toll was at a twoweek low, officials crediting strict lockdowns for seemingly slowing the rate of new infections.
Hardhit Spain, too, reported signs of a levelling off. — Los Angeles Times