Washington: The scale of devastation the coronavirus pandemic is inflicting on the United States revealed itself on Thursday (Friday AEDT) as the country became the new world leader in COVID-19 cases and posted its biggest spike in unemployment claims in history.

At least 83,836 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, more than have been recorded in the previous epicentres of China and Italy.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed that coronavirus hospitalisations had surged by 40 per cent in a single day in his state. Credit:AP

More than 1000 people have died in the US after contracting the virus, with over a third of all fatalities occurring in New York. A hundred people a day are succumbing to the virus in New York, which has five times more confirmed cases than any other state.

Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that his state's hospital system was about to be swamped, as the number of hospitalisations in New York jumped by 40 per cent from the previous day.