The U.S. economy contracted an annualized real 4.8 percent in the January to March period due to the coronavirus pandemic, marking the biggest quarterly drop since the 2008 global financial crisis, data from the Commerce Department showed Wednesday.

The contraction in terms of inflation-adjusted gross domestic product brought an end to the country's longest economic expansion, which had continued for a decade. In the preceding quarter, GDP grew 2.1 percent.

The result for the reporting quarter was worse than the average market forecast of a decrease of 4.0 percent. Nonetheless, it only reflects a portion of the fallout from the spread of the new coronavirus, which started to hit the U.S. economy severely in the final weeks of March due to containment efforts such as the widespread shuttering of businesses and stay-at-home orders.

Few people are seen at New York's Times Square on March 24, 2020, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed a lockdown to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.  

According to the department, private consumption, which accounts for two-thirds of the world's largest economy, was down 7.6 percent, logging the sharpest decline since 1980. In the preceding quarter, it grew 1.8 percent.

Nonresidential private investment, a measure of business spending, shrank 8.6 percent, following a decline of 2.4 percent in the October-December period.

Exports fell 8.7 percent after rising 2.1 percent in the preceding quarter, and imports plunged 15.3 percent compared with a drop of 8.4 percent.

Government spending expanded 0.7 percent, down from a 2.5 percent growth the previous period.

The headline reading represents the worst economic downturn since the fourth quarter of 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The GDP fell by 8.4 percent in the October-December period of that year.

Touching on the stay-at-home orders issued by states across the country, the department said, "This led to rapid changes in demand, as businesses and schools switched to remote work or canceled operations, and consumers canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending."

While some states have recently started to ease their social-distancing restrictions, experts paint an even bleaker picture for the April-June quarter.

An office providing analysis for the U.S. Congress said Friday that it expects the GDP to suffer a 39.6 percent decline in the April-June quarter, which would be the worst-ever quarterly contraction since comparable data became available in 1947.

A sharp rebound is expected in following quarters, leading the economy to shrink by 5.6 percent in 2020, the Congressional Budget Office said in its economic projections.

The United States saw its confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, surpass the 1 million mark on Tuesday, accounting for roughly one-third of the cases worldwide.

More than 58,000 people in the United States have been killed by the disease, which was first detected in China late last year.