Surgeon General: COVID-19 Cases Next Week Will Be ‘Our Pearl Harbor Moment’

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the White House on April 3, 2020. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Surgeon General Jerome Adams said he anticipates that the rise in coronavirus cases next week will be “our Pearl Harbor moment” during Sunday morning interviews.

When asked by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about what he would advise the nine governors who have not issued stay-at-home orders to do, Adams said he would advise them to follow the White House’s 30 days to slow the spread guidelines.

After noting that he ran a state department of health and that he’s talked to many governors, Adams gave a grim comparison regarding the anticipated rise of coronavirus cases next week.

“The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It’s going to be our 9/11 moment,” Adams said. “It’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives.”

Adams then said that 90% of Americans are “doing their part” even in states without a shelter-in-place to help flatten the curve, but that he wants everyone to understand that they’ve “got to be Rosie the Riveter” so that health care systems don’t become more overwhelmed in the next week.

Watch Adams’ remarks on MSNBC below:

When asked by Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace about how bad the epidemic will be in the country and how long it will last, Adams echoed his comments on MSNBC.

“Well, it’s tragically fitting that we are talking at the beginning of Holy Week because this is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly,” Adams said. “It’s going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment. Only it’s not gonna be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country.”

Watch Adams’ remarks below:

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  1. As of 1:30 PM ET, there are over 16k new cases and 873 new fatalities. Fatalities are now over 9k. Total cases are at 328k. This is somewhat remarkable b/c Sunday has typically been a slow reporting day in the US and around the world.

    NY reported some drops from the night before but I think too much has been made of it. The reported hospitalizations are still higher than Friday night’s number (the then record) and so we need to see 4 to 5 days of data to discount reporting lags.

    These numbers all vastly undercount the actual number of infected persons as well as the number of fatalities. Even CDC is admitting that.

  2. Pearl Harbor.

    With 70 days’ notice to prepare. And increasingly frantic warnings each day.

    And nothing done to stop it.

  3. Pearl Harbor? 9/11?

    What’s on the horizon is the Battle of the Somme.

  4. If this is our Pearl Harbor moment (and how dare they use that…) then trump* is a Kamikaze pilot.

  5. And after pearl harbor fellow Americans viewed as the perps were demonized and sequestered in concentration camps. Do not doubt that Trump and the GOP plan messaging to make it so against the filthy liberal cities and their Democrat mismanagement that caused all of this.

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