USA TODAY
THE NATION'S NEWS | $2 | MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020QIJFAF-01005z(L)k
©COPYRIGHT 2020
USA TODAY,
A division of
Gannett Co., Inc.More than 11 million Americans at
risk of death if infected with the virus
because of factors including chronic
health conditions and smoking.Millions would be at severe
risk of dying from COVID-18-
2930-
3940-
4950-
5960-
69 70- 7980+3M2M1MBY AGE GROUPSOURCE Gallup National Health and
Well-Being Index
AMY BARNETTE, DAVID ANESTA/USA TODAY
HOME DELIVERY
1-800-872-0001, USATODAYSERVICE.COM
It’s too early to predict
when sports will return
Tailgating, ball playing will start when experts
say it’s safe, Nancy Armour writes. In SportsWith couples stuck inside,
baby talk is booming
Only time will tell whether we’re really looking
at a new quarantine generation. In LifePhony cures,
fake vaccines
follow in
virus’ wake
Authorities crack down
on pop-up test sites
and internet schemes
that play on public fear
in the name of profit.
USA TODAY NETWORK Nation’s HealthThere were more than 331,000 con-
firmed COVID-19 cases in the USA and
more than 9,400 had died from the dis-
ease as of late Sunday afternoon, ac-
cording to data from Johns Hopkins
University.
On Saturday, Dr. Deborah Birx, co-
ordinator of the White House Corona-
virus Task Force, said she expected
that death toll to rise quickly in the
coming week in three “hot spots”
where there are a large number of con-
firmed cases: New York, Detroit and
Louisiana.
Birx said projections show those
three areas will reach their peak num-
bers of deaths per day from the virus,
“all of them hitting together in the next
six to seven days.”
When asked how many deaths can
be expected, Birx referred reporters to
healthdata.org, which predicts, based
on the Charles Murray model, thatCORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Surgeon General Jerome Adams says there is hope if people do their part to flatten the curve of the virus. ALEX BRANDON/AP
Surgeon general: Brace
for ‘our Pearl Harbor’
White House warns this will be deadliest week yet
William Cumming
USA TODAY
Surgeon General Jerome Adams said
Sunday the coronavirus pandemic ri-
vals some of the darkest moments in
U.S. history, including the two worst for-
eign attacks on American soil: the Japa-
nese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the
Sept. 1 1 terrorist hijackings.
“This is going to be the hardest and
the saddest week of most Americans’
lives, quite frankly,” Adams told “Fox
News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “This
is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment,
our 9/ 1 1 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.”
His comments echo what leading
health care officials have said for days in
an attempt to prepare the nation for
what’s to come and in the hope of less-
ening a grim reality by stressing the
need for aggressive social distancing.
INSIDEHow to sew a mask
USA TODAY explains what you’ll need
and provides a sewing pattern. 4DMilk demand plummets
As eateries close, farms dump tens
of thousands of gallons a day. 1B
See DEADLY WEEK, Page 4AJANET
LOEHRKE/
USA TODAYWASHINGTON – Treasury Secre-
tary Steven Mnuchin is promising that
millions of Americans will receive
$1,200 stimulus checks in just two
weeks, but some tax experts and con-
gressional officials are warning it may
take much longer.
Antiquated technology and staff re-
ductions at the Internal Revenue Ser-
vice have seriously
hampered the agency’s
ability to process checks
in such a short period
and could mean delays
in sending the money to
anxious Americans who
are counting on the cash
to get them through
hard times caused by the coronavirus
pandemic, experts say.
“There are going to be a lot of people
for whom this is going to take a while,
and I think it’s going to be measured in
terms of months, not weeks,” said
Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at
the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center.
Mnuchin dismissed such concerns
at a White House news conference on
Thursday, telling reporters the IRS will
begin sending the money to many
Americans via direct deposit in just
two weeks. Checks will be mailed to
Americans who haven’t provided their
bank account information to the IRS.
“I don’t know where you’re hearing
these things,” Mnuchin said of possi-
ble delays. “This money does people
no good if it shows up in four months,
and we will deliver on that promise (of
two weeks).”
The checks are part of a $2.2 trillion
recovery package that President Don-
ald Trump signed into law last week to
provide a quick cash infusion to Amer-
icans hurt financially by the pandem-
ic. The recovery package also includes
loans, grants and tax breaks for busi-
nesses also reeling from the economic
fallout caused by the pandemic.
But the Trump administration’s
quick timeline for getting the stimulusStimulus
checks
could take
months
Outdated technology,
staff cuts saddle IRS
Michael Collins
USA TODAYMnuchinSee CHECKS, Page 3Athat ritual and changed the way we say
goodbye: the loss remains, the connec-
tions change.
Gone are huge public funerals and
wakes in funeral homes filled with
mourners who cry and laugh, linger and
reminisce. In their place across much of
the country are family-only funeral
home visitations of 10 or fewer, lives-
treamed memorials and plans to gather
when the world gets back to normal.
Farley said she’s grateful to the
nurses at Denver’s Swedish Medical
Center who tended to her father and set
up FaceTime sessions so the family
could talk to him and, two days later, see
last rites administered.
Mike Farley died March 23 at age 87.
“Dying alone is the hardest part, but
it’s also really hard to grieve alone,” Far-
ley said. “People think that doing a
video conference or talking to the
friends on Zoom or Zoom cocktail hour
is awkward and alienating, but grieving
alone is really isolating.”
A glimpse at any newspaper’s obitu-Hugs are gone, leaving only the grief
Funerals see a change
in how we say goodbye
Peter D. Kram
The Journal News
USA TODAY NETWORK – NEW JERSEYMaggie Farley wants to remember
the way her father lived – the Denver
probate lawyer’s sense of humor, in-
tegrity and decades fighting for afford-
able housing – not how he died of
COVID-19 with no family permitted at
his hospital bedside.
“I don’t feel like he died with regrets
and I don’t feel like we left anything
unsaid, but I really would have liked to
have been there to hold his hand,” said
Farley, of Bethesda, Maryland. “It’s an
essential human fear that we don’t
want to die alone, and the worst part of
it for our family was knowing that he
was in the hospital alone.”
For many, a funeral is a ritual of loss
and connection where we remember
the dead and comfort the living. But
the coronavirus outbreak has alteredKeith Taylor of Hannemann Funeral
Home in Nyack, N.Y., has been forced
to weigh tradition and emotion vs. a
pandemic. JOHN MEORE/USA TODAY NETWORK“Dying alone is the hardest
part, but it’s also really hard
to grieve alone.”
Maggie Farley, who lost her father,
See FUNERALS, Page 2A Mike Farley, to COVID-19 on March 23