Spain hospitals at breaking point as coronavirus cases pass China

Spain overtook China on Monday in confirmed coronavirus infections as the pandemic stretched scores of Spanish hospitals to their breaking point.

As confirmed virus deaths in New York surpassed 1,000, President Donald Trump extended stay-at-home recommendations for a month in an abrupt turnaround.

With a population of only 47 million people to China's 1.4 billion, Spain's tally of infections reached 85,195, an 8 per cent rise from the previous day but down from earlier increases that had rocketed up to 20 per cent.

Spain also reported 812 new deaths, raising its overall confirmed death toll to 7,340.

Experts say those figures and ones in