US now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country

The United States now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country in the world, the latest figures show.

The number of people infected in the US topped 82,000 on Thursday, according to a running count by Johns Hopkins University.

That is just ahead of the 81,000 cases in China and the 80,000 in Italy - which earlier became Europe's epicentre of the global outbreak.

More than 1,100 people have died in the US.

Italy has the most confirmed deaths of any country with more than 8,000.

Collectively the three countries accounted for about half the global total.

In the US, 400 deaths have been in New York State alone - the worst hotspot in the nation.

Most of those victims were in New York City, where hospitals are getting swamped.

Louisiana has also emerged as another epicentre for Covid-19.

The number of new cases in the state jumped by more than 500 on Thursday, for a total of over 2,300, with 86 deaths, including a 17-year-old, the health department said.

The higher infection numbers reflected an increase in testing.

New Orleans was gearing up for a possible overflow at hospitals, with plans to treat as many as 3,000 patients at the city's convention centre.

It comes as a record 3.3 million people in the US filed claims for unemployment last week after the pandemic shut significant chunks of the worlds largest economy.

The figure is the highest ever reported, beating the previous record of 695,000 claims filed the week ending 2 October 1982.