New York state, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., now has more cases of the virus than any country in the world.

As of Friday morning, the Empire State had almost 162,000 confirmed cases of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. Spain, the country with the most confirmed cases other than the U.S., has just over 157,000 cases.

Of the over 16,600 deaths in the U.S. from the disease, more than 7,000 have come from New York.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has predicted the highest daily number of deaths from COVID-19 to occur sometime this weekend and that 60,415 will die from the virus by August 4.

This is down from the White House coronavirus task force's initial death toll range of 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.

On Thursday night, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said the U.S. is closing in on the peak of the outbreak.

"I think we're coming to the peak. ... We can see the other side of the curve," the doctor said in an appearance on CNN. Redfield credited the country's "aggressive social distancing" techniques for lowering the expected mortality rate.