New York state now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than any country in the world

New York state alone now has more reported coronavirus cases than any other country in the world, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

The state is the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 160,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Comparatively, here are the number of confirmed cases in other countries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, as of 9th April 2020:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged residents of his state to continue to stay home and practice social distancing in order to quell the spread of COVID-19.

Cuomo said that 799 people in New York died of COVID-19 on 8th April 2020, the highest death toll from the virus in a single day for the state so far.

The New York governor said over 7,000 people in the state had lost their lives due to the virus up to this point.

"9/11 was supposed to be the darkest day in New York for a generation," Cuomo said at a press conference. "And then, in many ways, we lose so many more New Yorkers to this silent killer."

The 9/11 terror attacks killed 2,753 people in New York City. As of 9th April 2020, there were 5,150 reported deaths from coronavirus in America's most populated city.

The US has the most confirmed coronavirus cases in the world — over 454,000 — the pandemic has claimed the lives of well over 16,000 people across the 50 states. Globally, over 1.58 million people have been diagnosed with coronavirus and the pandemic has killed over 94,800 people.

In the US, among other countries, the number of people infected and killed by coronavirus is believed to be much higher due to a shortage of testing kits.

The novel coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, and there is also widespread skepticism about the numbers reported by the Chinese government.