An additional 799 patients died from the coronavirus in New York in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 7,067, according to the state's governor Thursday.
"You're dealing with 799 lives. It's so shocking, breathtaking. I don't even have words for it," Andrew Cuomo said during a daily news conference.
It was the highest single-day record of deaths in the state from COVID-19, surpassing Tuesday's figure of 779 deaths.
Cuomo drew parallels to the 1918 Spanish Flu that he said came in three waves and "we are on the first wave."
"Everybody is assuming once we get through this, we are done. I would not be so quick to assume that," he said. "This virus has been ahead of us from day one. We've underestimated the enemy, and that is always dangerous, my friends. And we should not do that again."
Cuomo said the hospitalization rate "is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started" and "it does suggest that it's coming down and we are flattening the curve."
The U.S. has become the country with the most confirmed coronavirus infections with 432,500, followed by Spain with 152,440.
The virus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December. It has since spread to at least 184 countries and regions.
There are more than 1.5 million confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide and an excess of 90,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
More than 340,000 patients have recovered.
