Although the novel coronavirus originated in China’s Wuhan, it quickly spread throughout the world and has hit the West the hardest.

Europe currently suffers the most among all continents, with over 450,000 cases and more than 30,000 deaths.

Life and death at stake in new coronavirus epicenter

Coronavirus death toll in the U.S. jumped by 920 on Wednesday, bringing total number of fatalities to 4,090.

As the epicenter has shifted from China to the United States, President Donald Trump warned "life and death at stake."

Trump warned Americans to brace for a "hell of a bad two weeks" ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus pandemic even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.

Trump called it "a matter of life and death" for Americans to heed his administration’s guidelines and predicted the country would soon see a "light at the end of the tunnel" in a pandemic that in the United States has infected about 190,000 people and killed about 4,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

"I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead," Trump said.

"This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we've ever had in our country," he added. "We're going to lose thousands of people."

"This could be hell of a bad two weeks,'" Trump said. He added: "You know 100,000 is, according to modeling, a very low number. In fact, when I first saw the number ... they said it was unlikely you’ll be able to attain that. We have to see but I think we're doing better than that."

Trump played down concerns from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and other governors that their states' hospitals don't have enough ventilators to treat an anticipated crush of patients. Trump said the federal government currently has a stockpile of 10,000 ventilators that it plans on distributing as needed.

"Now, when the surge occurs, if it occurs fairly evenly, we'll be able to distribute them very quickly before they need them," Trump said. "But we want to have a reserve right now. It's like having oil reserves."

On the other hand, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, seemed a bit more hopeful. "This is a number that we need to anticipate, but we don’t necessarily have to accept it as being inevitable," he said, later expressing his warning to the nation.

Fauci called the projected number of U.S. coronavirus deaths "sobering" and urged Americans to "step on the accelerator" with their collective mitigation efforts.

"We are continuing to see things go up," Fauci said. "We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work."

The jaw-dropping projections were laid out during a grim, two-hour White House briefing. Officials described a death toll that in a best-case scenario would likely be greater than the more than 53,000 American lives lost during World War I. And the model's high end neared the realm of possibility that Americans lost to the virus could approach the 291,000 Americans killed on the battlefield during World War II.

Europe becomes the country hardest hit by COVID-19 with 30,000 deaths

In Europe, 30,063 deaths have been recorded out of 458,601 cases, making it the continent that has been hit hardest by COVID-19.

The most deaths were recorded in Italy, with some 12,428 fatalities, followed by Spain with 8,189 and France with 3,523.

The number of people with coronavirus who have died in Britain rose by 563 to a total 2,352 by 1600 GMT on March 31, the government said on Wednesday.

It said there were 29,474 confirmed cases of the virus at as 0800 GMT on Wednesday, up from 25,150 the day before.

The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

After first appearing in Wuhan, China, last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 180 countries and territories, according to data compiled by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

The data shows over 860,000 cases have been reported worldwide since last December, with the death toll over 42,000 and more than 178,000 recoveries.