US overtakes China with over 82,000 coronavirus cases

United States has now surpassed China in the number of COVID-19 cases around the world, with at least 82,404 people are known to have been infected with the deadly coronavirus, the Johns Hopkins University real-time COVID-19 tracker said on Thursday.

It is, however, important to note that the US has been testing people at a much larger scale, when compared with other countries that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

"We now have 370,000 tests that have been done. The majority of those -- over 220,000 in the last eight days, which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days," Dr Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, told reporters on Thursday.

Although the US has surpassed China's 81,782 mark, the COVID-19-related death toll in the country is still lower than China, with 1,178 Americans having died as opposed to the 3,291 Chinese fatalities.

At least 160 million Americans have been ordered to stay home as schools are closed, restaurants and bars have been closed in hope of the curtail spread of the lethal virus, The New York Times reported.

New York City is among the worst-hit cities as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city has reached 38,000 and 281 have died.

On Wednesday, US Senate leaders and Trump Administration had reached an agreement regarding a USD 2 trillion package to rescue the economy from the coronavirus wrath, paving the way for swift passage of the legislation from both the chambers of Congress.

Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide exceeded 20,000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The G-20 summit which concluded on Thursday pledged to inject over USD 5 trillion into the global economy in a bid to counteract the social, economic, and financial impact of COVID 19 that has impacted people in at least 170 countries and caused over 20,000 deaths.

As of Thursday, 4,62,684 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection were registered in the world, 20,834 of the patients died, WHO data shows.

On March 11, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic which has now has been detected in 199 countries and territories.