Governor Andrew Cuomo says New York's capacity to test for COVID-19 has expanded to the point where the state can make testing available to all first responders, health care workers and workers considered essential. Cuomo says that means everyone from paramedics to bus drivers can now go to a testing site and ask for the coronavirus test...he says anyone who interacts with the public can be tested. He says this is because the capacity of the state's 3,000 testing labs is ramping up fast.
Governor Cuomo also says he's asking the state's 5,000 independent pharmacies to become testing sites for COVID-19. As testing opens up, he says many more sampling sites are needed to feed samples into the labs statewide.
The Governor says new cases are still trending down across New York, with 1100 new cases over the past 24 hours instead of 1200. But deaths from the virus remain above 400 at 437. Cuomo says he wants to see those numbers down to only a few hundred new cases per day and far fewer deaths.