Coronavirus: Number of COVID-19 cases in US overtake Italy and China

The US now leads the world in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases.

There are almost 86,000 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in the US - roughly 16% of the world's total of 532,000 - according to Johns Hopkins University.

This puts it ahead of China, where the virus originated, and also ahead of Italy, Europe's epicentre which has been overwhelmed by the virus in recent weeks.
China has almost 82,000 cases and Italy has 80,500.

The country has seen a sharp decrease in new cases in recent weeks and has moved to suspend visits from almost all foreign nationals - a turnaround from the situation in January, when the US and Europe were limiting travel from China.

US President Donald Trump dismissed his country's high number of cases as being a "tribute to our testing", adding that health officials were "testing tremendous numbers of people".

Mr Trump also cast doubt on China's numbers, saying: "You don't know what the numbers are in China."