Surgeon General: Urban hotspots Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans to get worse coronavirus next week

Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned Friday about new urban “hot spots” for the coronavirus outbreak including such dense, urban centers as Chicago, Detroit and New Orleans.

Adams said the spikes will emerge next week and that the virus will spread in those spots as a result of populations and efforts to slow its progress. 

"The virus and the local community are going to determine the timeline," Adams said on “CBS This Morning.” It's not going to be us from Washington, D.C. People need to follow their data, they need to make the right decisions based on what their data is telling them." 

Adams also pointed out that New York has reported a leveling off of cases, China and South Korea are reopening and Italy's death and new-cases rates are going down. 

"We know that we can get through this," he said. "And the good news here is we've seen testing increase significantly." 

Analysts say Dallas, Houston and Philadelphia could also face rapid spread soon.

Vice President Mike Pence said last night during the daily coronavirus task force briefing that more than half a million Americans had been tested for coronavirus. The Trump administration said that the United States had performed more coronavirus tests last week than South Korea has in eight weeks.

Early in the U.S. period of "social distancing" to avoid the coronavirus spread, experts, including those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the risk of coronavirus spread through ventilation systems in New York City apartment buildings is low, reported New York real estate publication Brick Underground.

However, experts are now re-evaluating whether HVAC systems and other shared-ventilation methods in urban areas could accelerate the spread. 

Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, pleaded with the media to stop frightening people worldwide with incorrect stories about supply shortages and hospitals enforcing universal "Do Not Resuscitate" orders. 

"Please, for the reassurance of people across the world ... there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion right now," Birx said during the task force’s daily White House briefing Thursday.