Immune To COVID? New Study Suggests Why

Likening the coronavirus pandemic to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. surgeon general on Sunday warned the country to prepare for "the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives."

“This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that,” Vice Adm. Jerome Adams said on "Fox News Sunday."

Adams urged all Americans to heed the recommendations to stay at home for the next 30 days, even those in the nine states that haven't issued such orders.

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“This is going to be a test of our resolve,” Adams said. “It's going to be the test of our lives. But I am confident that we can come out on the other side, based on the data and based on what I know about the American people.”

In the U.S., at least 335,524 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, had been confirmed as of Sunday evening, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. At least 9,619 deaths have been attributed to the virus.

Worldwide, more than 1.27 million people have been infected, and at least 69,374 have died, as of Sunday evening.

Amid the dire news, there were also glimmers of hope some hard-hit areas, The Associated Press Reported. The number of people dying appeared to be slowing in New York City, Spain and Italy. “We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

The news was cautiously welcomed by leaders, who noted that gains could easily be reversed if people didn't stay on lockdown, AP reported.

Latest Developments

United States:

-Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced a recommended curfew for everyone in the city except essential workers from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily and said the city was at the beginning of a surge of new coronavirus cases.

-Capt. Brett E. Crozier, the Navy captain who was removed from command of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, has tested positive for COVID-19, the New York Times reported, citing two Naval Academy classmates of Crozier’s who are close to him and his family. A Navy spokesman declined to comment on Crozier’s COVID status. Crozier was relieved of command after a letter he had emailed to Navy leaders detailing the service's failures in dealing with a coronavirus outbreak on the ship was leaked. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday said there were 155 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among sailors aboard the aircraft carrier.

-All individuals operating on Defense Department property worldwide should “wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers” effective immediately, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Esper. He said the directive would not apply to a service member’s personal residence on a military installation.

-Families of sick passengers aboard the Coral Princess in Port Miami pleaded with cruise line and government officials on Sunday to get their relatives to hospitals, the Miami Herald reported. The ship docked Saturday with at least 12 cases of COVID-19 onboard. Five people were taken to hospitals Saturday in Miami and Tampa. A sixth person, Wilson Maa, 71, waited nearly five hours on the ship before an ambulance responded to his family’s calls for help. He died later that night at Larkin Community Hospital in Hialeah.

-Current virus hot spots of Detroit, New York and Louisiana are likely to reach a peak in the next six to seven days, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, citing forecasts by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “The next two weeks are extraordinarily important,” Birx said. “This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe, and that means everybody doing the six-feet distancing, washing their hands.”

-Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, on CBS News’ "Face the Nation," also said “this is going to be a bad week. We’re going to continue to see an escalation. Also, we should hope that within a week, maybe a little bit more, we’ll start to see a flattening out of the curve and coming down... Things are going to get bad and we need to be prepared for that. It’s going to be shocking to some and it certainly is really disturbing to see that... just buckle down."

-Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state said Sunday on NBC News's "Meet the Press" that it's “ludicrous" that the federal government isn't helping states get the emergency equipment they need. "To say we are a backup ... Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt said ‘I’ll be right behind you Connecticut, good luck building those battleships’?” Inslee said. “Look, we need a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the United States.”

-Also on "Meet the Press," Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the current approach to the procurement of medical supplies could be improved. “It literally is a global jungle that we’re competing in now,” Hutchinson said. “I’d like to see a better way, but that’s the reality in which we are.”

-Gov. John Bel Edwards said if the number of COVID-19 cases continues to surge in his state, Louisiana could run out of ventilators by the end of the week. "Every day we get new information that informs our modeling. We now think it's probably around the 9th of April before we exceed our ventilator capacity based on the current number on hand and that we're a couple of days behind that on ICU bed capacity being exceeded," Edwards told CNN. "As we achieve success in slowing the rate of spread, we also push out that date. And critically important is the number of people who will present to the hospital and not be able to get a (ventilator) or a bed, it's a smaller number."

-Esper, the secretary of Defense, told CNN on Sunday that “many” ventilators to be used in the coronavirus response have "deployed with the USNS Comfort and Mercy in New York and Los Angeles, respectively." "We have several field hospitals deployed in New York, Seattle, New Orleans, and Dallas. And then we provided several hundred more that are prepositioned and ready to go, particularly with regard to New York City, when they're needed. As you may know, HHS has several thousand ventilators in stock right now and they plan on delivering those first,” Esper said.

-The Democratic National Convention, which has already been delayed until August, may need to be held virtually, former Vice President Joe Biden said on ABC’s “This Week,” because it may not be possible to put tens of thousands of people in one place. Biden, who appears likely to receive the Democratic presidential nomination, also said he plans to wear a mask in public, unlike President Trump.

Worldwide:

-United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to a hospital for tests 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus, a spokeswoman said. The move was described as a "precautionary step" taken on the advice of his doctor because he "continues to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus", the spokeswoman said.

-Johnson’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, 32, revealed Saturday that she spent a week in bed with coronavirus symptoms, though she wasn't tested. Symonds, who is pregnant, said she was now “on the mend,” AP reported.

-In only the fourth such address in her 67-year reign, Queen Elizabeth II appealed to Britons to exercise self-discipline in “an increasingly challenging time.” The 93-year-old monarch said in a broadcast to the United Kingdom, "While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavor, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed — and that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again."

-According to the Department of Health and Social Care, 47,806 people had tested positive for coronavirus in the United Kingdom as of 9 a.m. Sunday BST. The number of deaths stood at 4,934.

-Instead of celebrating Palm Sunday with tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis led Mass inside a nearly empty St. Peter’s Basilica. Besides his aides, a few invited prelates, nuns and laypeople were present staggered far apart to reduce the risks of infection from the coronavirus.

-Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue working remotely for at least another week amid the pandemic. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin and people who work with him are being tested regularly. Russia’s coronavirus task force says the number of infections in the country was 5,389, which is up almost 700 than the previous day. There have been 45 deaths recorded.

-Spain recorded 6,023 confirmed new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, taking the national tally to 130,759. That is down from an increase of 7,026 infections in the previous 24-hour period, confirming the downward tendency of the past week. Confirmed new deaths also dropped to 674 fatalities, taking the national tally to 12,418. That is the first time new deaths have fallen below 800 new fatalities in the past week.

-Japan is said to be increasing its stockpile of a flu drug called Avigan or favipiravir that scientists think could help treat COVID-19, the BBC reported. Two trials China suggested the drug shortened recovery time. Local media say Japan is hoping to triple production from current levels, so that there will be enough to treat 2 million people. Japan has begun clinical trials that will run until the end of June.

For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.