As nations around the world ramp up their battle against the novel coronavirus, The US, one of the worlds biggest nations, has surpassed the 10,000 deaths mark. According to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University, this translates to more than 1,000 American lives lost due to coronavirus-related conditions each day since April 1.

At the time of writing, the US has the third-highest number of  deaths from the disease in the world, behind Spain with 13,055 fatalities and Italy with 15,887. Many healthcare experts in the US have predicted that it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and just last week warned that the total number of deaths could reach up to 200,000.

This week in particular is expected to be especially difficult. The Surgeon General of the US, Jerome Adams said on Sunday that the coming week will be “the hardest and saddest week of most Americans’ lives”, going as far as to compare it to Pearl Harbour and 9/11.

With many referring to the week as “peak death week”, how the country weathers the rapid increase in positive cases and hospitalizations will set the tone for the morale of the nation. That being said, it’s not all bad news on the North American front.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that the total number of new hospitalizations, ICU admissions and daily intubations in the state of New York have decreased on each of the past three days. This data fuels hopes that the coronavirus curve may just be flattening.

In spite of the projections however, the Governor insists that it is folly to think that the worst is over and announced that he would be extending New York’s stay-at-home order until the 29th of April. He also urged New Yorkers to continue abiding by social distancing guidelines and even raised the potential maximum fine for violations of social distancing from US$500 to US$1000.