The United States now has now overtaken Italy to have the highest death toll from coronavirus in the world. Photo: Internet Source

The grim milestone comes shortly after the US became the first nation to record more than 2,000 virus deaths in a single day.

The governor of New York Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday the state's death toll appeared to be stabilising. Announcing a 24-hour figure of 783 new deaths, he noted the last several days had seen around the same number.

"That is not an all-time high, and you can see that the number is somewhat stabilising but it is stabilising at a horrific rate," Mr Cuomo said. "These are just incredible numbers depicting incredible loss and pain."

New York state has become the epicentre of the outbreak in the US, recording more than 180,000 of the country's estimated 520,000 cases.

As of Saturday, every single US state has declared a disaster in response to the outbreak.

More than 100,000 have now died with the virus around the world since the pandemic broke out in China in December.