US is New Epicenter of the Coronavirus Pandemic

By Rachael Rettner
Senior Writer
Live Science

The coronavirus outbreak reached a somber milestone in the U.S. on Thursday (March 26) — the nation now has more coronavirus cases than any other country in the world.

There are now at least 82,174 cases of the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, in the United States, according to worldometer, a website that tracks coronavirus cases. That's higher than the case count in either Italy (which has  80,589 cases) or China (which has 81,285 cases).

Nearly half of all U.S. coronavirus cases are in New York, which has reported more than 37,700 cases.

Just a few days ago, the World Health Organization warned that the U.S. had the potential to become the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. coronavirus cases have soared in recent weeks — at the beginning of March, the county had reported only about 100 cases total, according to worldometer.

Coronavirus cases in China, where the outbreak began, initially increased rapidly, but leveled off after about Feb. 20.