US President Donald Trump considering quarantine on Covid-19 hotspot New York

US President Donald Trump has said he is considering imposing a quarantine on New York in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Mr Trump's comments on Saturday came as the number of confirmed cases in the state surged to more than 52,000, causing at least 728 deaths to date.

"We'd like to see [it] quarantined because it's a hotspot," Mr Trump told reporters at the White House. "I'm thinking about that right now."

However, New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said he had not discussed such measures with the president.

"I didn't speak to him about any quarantine," Mr Cuomo told reporters shortly after he held a call with Mr Trump.

"I don't know how that can be legally enforceable," he added. "And from a medical point of view, I don't know what you would be accomplishing."

New York state has the highest number of cases of Covid-19 in the US, which earlier on Saturday became the first country to record more than 100,000 confirmed coronavirus infections.

American healthcare workers on the frontline of the pandemic have appealed for more protective gear and equipment - particularly ventilators - to treat a surge in patients that is already pushing hospitals to their limits in virus hot spots such as New York City itself, as well as New Orleans and Detroit.​

The US President has come under intense scrutiny for his management of the crisis, with critics accusing him of downplaying the pandemic and not acting quickly enough to curtail it.

Presidential challenger Joe Biden has called Mr Trump's handling of the outbreak "one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership" in US history.

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