WASHINGTON: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reported on Friday morning that the US had 104,837 confirmed cases of COVID-19, more than any other country in the world.

The announcement comes in the wake of President Trump’s optimistic declaration at a press briefing on Thursday that he expected the American people and country would return to work “pretty quickly.”

The president had previously expressed skepticism regarding the accuracy of reporting on COVID-19 cases in other countries, saying, “You don’t know what the numbers are in China.”

Nearly half of US cases are in New York, which has 46,262 reported coronavirus cases and 606 deaths, followed by New Jersey with 8,825 cases and 108 deaths, and California with 4,905 cases and 102 deaths.

The Johns Hopkins report, which updates regularly, confirmed there have been 1,711 deaths in the US and 894 recoveries.

Italy, which ranks second on the Johns Hopkins list, has 86,498 confirmed COVID-19 cases and the highest number of deaths (9,134) in any country.

Among the worst-stricken countries after the US are China, Spain, Germany and Iran.

Middle Eastern countries rank lower than most Western nations, although Israel is the 20th worst with 3,460 cases. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have a total of 97 cases.

On Thursday, President Trump signed a $2.2 trillion relief package to mitigate the impact of the virus on the economy.

“Twenty days ago — a couple of days longer than that, maybe — we had a smooth-running, beautiful machine. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We had the highest stock price we’ve ever seen. It went up, I think, 151 times during the course of the presidency,” the president said.

“And then, we got hit by the invisible enemy, and we got hit hard. But it wasn’t just us, it was 151 countries, I think, as of this morning.”