Coronavirus update: US hit hardest, New Orleans, Chicago suffer

New York remained the worst-hit US city, with governor Andrew Cuomo saying that the struggle to defeat the virus will take “weeks and weeks and weeks”.

The sum of known coronavirus cases in the US soared well past 100,000, with more than 1,800 dead, as weary doctors and nurses coping with shortages resorted to extremes ranging from hiding scarce medical supplies to buying them on the black market.

Coronavirus update: Emergency room nurses transport buckets of donated flowers up a ramp outside Elmhurst Hospital Center's emergency room in New York.(AP)

New York remained the worst-hit US city, with governor Andrew Cuomo saying that the struggle to defeat the virus will take “weeks and weeks and weeks”. Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers being reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.

As shortages of key medical supplies abounded, desperate physicians and nurses were forced to take matters into their own hands. New York-area doctors said they have had to recycle some protective gear, or even resort to bootleg suppliers.

An emergency room doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicentre of the pandemic, said he was wearing one paper face mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon run out of ventilators.