Trump ditches Easter revival hopes

US President Donald Trump abandoned his ambition to return American life to normal by Easter, heeding advice from the government's top doctors that reopening the economy in two weeks risks greater death as the Covid-19 outbreak accelerates.

And Spain became the third country to surpass China in infections after the United States and Italy.

Trump, in a stark shift from two weeks of measured optimism, said his guidelines for Americans to practice "social distancing" will remain in place until at least April 30.

Trump said he hoped the country would reach "the bottom of the hill" by June 1 - "could even be sooner, could be a little bit later."

The turnabout came after Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said up to 200,000 Americans could die and millions become infected if lockdowns and social distancing did not continue. "We want to make sure we don't prematurely think we're doing so great," he said.

The United States now has more than 143,000 infections and 2,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, while around the world 732,000 people are infected. The true number of cases is thought to be considerably higher because of testing shortages and mild illnesses that have gone unreported.

New York state remained the epicenter of the US outbreak, with the vast majority of the deaths in New York City, surpassing 1,000. But infections were spiking not only in cities but now in remote Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens.

Spain's tally of infections reached 85,195, while also reported 812 new deaths, raising its overall virus death toll to 7,300.

The health systems in Italy and Spain have been overwhelmed by so many desperately ill patients at once. At least six of Spain's 17 regions were at their limit of intensive-care beds and three more were close to it, authorities said.

Even as the rate of new infections slows in Spain, Maria Jose Sierra - who took over as the health emergency center's spokesperson after its director, Fernando Simon, tested positive - said there's no end to the restrictions in sight yet.

Italy has reported 97,689 infections and 10,779 deaths but said the number of positive cases in the last day increased just 5.4 percent, and the number of deaths has dropped about 10 percent a day since Friday.

Experts said the critical situations seen in hospitals in Italy and Spain will be soon heading toward the United States.

Moscow went on its own lockdown with the city of 13 million accounting for more than 1,000 of Russia's 1,836 coronavirus cases.

In China, restrictions began to ease as its National Health Commission reported 31 new Covid-19 cases, among them just one domestic infection.

China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - has to date declared 3,304 deaths and 81,470 cases, with 75,448 recoveries.

The other worst-hit countries are Iran with 2,757 deaths and 41,495 cases, and France with 2,606 deaths and 40,174 cases.

Cases across Africa rose close to 5,000 in 46 countries.