A body wrapped in plastic is unloaded from a refrigerated truck by medical workers at Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City on April 2, 2020. (AP Photo)

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8.30pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on Mar 27.

The US has now recorded over 7,000 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Globally, Italy still has the highest total death toll, with over 14,000 dying of the disease there, followed by Spain at over 11,000.

The US also recorded more than 30,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of officially reported cases in the country to more than 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That is roughly a quarter of the more than a million cases reported globally.

New York City is at the epicenter of the American outbreak, recording more than 1,500 deaths and nearing 50,000 positive cases, according to figures released late Thursday by city health authorities.

More than 1.3 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the US, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at a daily White House press conference on the virus.

We are now conducting over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day, President Donald Trump added at the same briefing, saying that was more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and on a per capita basis.

White House projections show the virus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US.

(Source: AFP)