Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said that next week will be very crucial for the United States’ fight against the coronavirus and that it would be “our Pearl Harbor moment. It’s going to be our 9/11 moment.” He added that the coming week will be the most challenging moment for the lives of many Americans and that everyone has to do their part if the curve is going to be flattened.

He was asking the people and the governors of the states to do their part and to encourage sheltering in place. He said that if people and the state governments cannot give them 30 days of sheltering in place, at least give them a week so that the healthcare system is not overwhelmed.

The biggest danger posed by the disease caused by the coronavirus is to have the healthcare system completely overwhelmed. Based on the data known about the disease, around 20% of those who contract the virus will have serious conditions and that many of them will require hospitalization. Some of those serious cases will require ventilators, of which there is a limited number. No healthcare system in the world can handle all of the serious cases should the virus be allowed to spread without any attempts to mitigate its effects.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci also appeared as a guest on a TV show, this on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He had some serious words to share with the nation. He said that it would be false to claim that the federal government has the pandemic under control. He confirmed what other health officials are saying that there would be an escalation in the coming week. On the bright side, he added that they are hoping that after that, there would be a flattening of the curve and an overall decline in the number of cases.

Officials of the administration and the president himself are preparing the American public for a worsening of the crisis. It seems that they are getting people ready to accept higher death counts. The United States has never faced a similar crisis for a long time. The last large-scale pandemic which caused high death counts was the Spanish Flu pandemic after World War One.