WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump has expressed hope that the United States is seeing a "levelling-off" of the coronavirus crisis in some of the nation's hot spots, but some of his top medical advisers are taking a more tempered view.

"We hope we're seeing a levelling-off in the hottest spots of them all," Mr Trump said on Sunday. But he added: "You can never be happy when so many people are dying."

New York, the hardest-hit state, reported on Sunday that for the first time in a week, deaths had fallen slightly from the day before, but there were still nearly 600 new fatalities and over 7,300 new cases, and Governor Andrew Cuomo said it was not yet clear whether the crisis was reaching a plateau.

Referring to the drop in fatalities in New York, Mr Trump said: "Maybe that's a good sign."

But while he cited those numbers as an indication that Americans were starting to see "light at the end of the tunnel", Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of Mr Trump's coronavirus task force, said it would take weeks for efforts like social distancing and stay-at-home orders to slow the virus' spread.

Asked whether his and other experts' grim projections of a rising death toll was at odds with what Mr Trump said, he did not directly contradict the President, who has been accused by critics of often taking a more positive view than justified by the facts. "What you're hearing about potential light at the end of the tunnel doesn't take away from the fact that tomorrow, the next day, are going to look really bad," Dr Fauci told reporters.

The US surgeon-general, too, has warned of a "Pearl Harbour moment" for America in the week ahead. Most states have ordered residents to stay home except for essential trips to slow the spread of the virus in the US, where more than 336,000 people have tested positive and over 9,600 have died.

However, a few governors have resisted issuing stay-at-home orders and a handful of churches held large Palm Sunday services.

White House medical experts have forecast that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die in the pandemic, even if sweeping orders to stay home are followed. And while infections and deaths in New York have fallen, places such as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington DC, are starting to see rising deaths.

Mr Trump also said the US was "very far down the line" on developing vaccines for the coronavirus. "We'll see what happens," he said. But he offered no specifics.

Meanwhile, the US has denied any knowledge of a shipment of face masks bound for Germany that officials in Berlin have accused Washington of diverting from an airport in Bangkok in what they called an "act of modern piracy".

And in another development, White House advisers have been discussing the possibility of a coronavirus-related US Treasury bond, Mr Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC yesterday.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE