The United States on Sunday entered one of the most critical weeks so far in the coronavirus crisis, with government officials warning that the death toll in places such as New York, Michigan and Louisiana was a sign of trouble to come in other states.
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Still, governors of eight states resisted issuing stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of the respiratory disease, and some churches held large Palm Sunday services in defiance of such orders in their states.
New York, the hardest-hit state, reported on Sunday that for the first time in a week, deaths had fallen slightly from the day before, but there were still nearly 600 new fatalities and more than 7,300 new cases. Places such as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington, D.C., are starting to see rising deaths.
“This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly. This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localised,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned on Fox News on Sunday. “It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that new hospitalizations had fallen by 50% over the previous 24 hours. He cautioned that