The United States has overtaken Italy as the world’s coronavirus hotspot. (Picture: Reuters)

The United States overtook Italy as the global coronavirus hotspot with 75,600 diagnoses and more than 1,000 deaths.

America saw thousands of new cases confirmed Thursday as it paced past Italy, which has 74,000 infected and a death toll of 7,503. While China still has the most coronavirus diagnoses – 81,285 – it claims to have contained its pandemic, with new diagnoses numbers slumping in recent days.

However, Italy leapfrogged ahead of the US in total cases on Thursday afternoon with more than 6,000 new diagnoses overnight, bringing the total to over 80,000, and 662 new deaths, bringing the total number of people killed there to at least 8,100. Italy appears to be at the peak of its outbreak, with falling infection numbers, and a steady daily death rate, with the United States likely to outstrip it for good sometime in the coming days.



New York has quickly become the epicenter for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus, with more than 33,000 cases and 385 deaths as of Thursday, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo.


The state saw an increase of 6,400 cases over the last day, Cuomo said, adding that 100 new deaths came overnight. There were 18,000 tests conducted over a 24-hour period in New York, the state reportedly testing more people per capita than anywhere else on Earth.

More than 5,300 people are currently hospitalized in New York with Covid-19, the official name for the new strain of coronavirus. The state currently has 1,290 ICU patients, according to Cuomo.

Cuomo says people who say they’re “tired” of coronavirus should think of workers in health care, retail, transportation and emergency response who go out every day. “Who am I to complain about being tired when so many people are doing such heroic efforts?” https://t.co/ciwYN92xE6 pic.twitter.com/sDcPJ8BUdf — CBS News (@CBSNews) March 26, 2020

Refrigerated trucks have also been drafted in to serve as mobile morgues at New York’s Bellevue Hospital (Picture: EPA)

A makeshift morgue has been set up outside Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan as New York diagnosed another 6,400 coronavirus cases overnight (Picture: EPA)

Assistant Nursing Manager at Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York City Kelly Kious, 48, died amid claims that the hospital is running low on protective gear, including gowns as nurses were pictured wearing trash bags. (Picture: Facebook)

The surge in cases comes as hospitals across New York are facing shortages in supplies, including masks, gowns, ventilators and other PPE (personal protective equipment). On Tuesday, a nurse died of coronavirus at Mount Saini West – where nurses were reportedly forced to wear trash bags because of a shortage of gowns.

‘We don’t have enough for the long term supply,’ Cuomo said Thursday.

‘Frankly were dealing with hospitals that need it tomorrow and the day after.’

The governor has said the state is expected to need 140,000 hospital beds – but it only has 53,000. On Thursday, he said the state is projected to need 40,000 ventilators, but it only has 12,000 at the moment.

New York City’s normally bustling Times Square was deserted Monday as the city became America’s coronavirus epicenter, with a total of 12,305 diagnoses (Picture: Getty)

‘The number of deaths is increasing. People are dying. It’s not bad news in terms of it being unexpected. What is happening is that people who were infected have been on ventilators. The longer you are on a ventilator the more probability there is of a bad outcome,’ Cuomo said Thursday.

New Jersey is the state with the second-most number of cases in the country with 4,402 and 62 deaths, although Washington state has the second-most corovavirus-related deaths with 132. Washington was one of the first states to see coronavirus cases spread.