New York coronavirus death toll hits more than 500; cases exceed 44,000

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a daily coronavirus press conference in front of media and National Guard members at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Friday.Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty

More than 500 people in New York have died from coronavirus, a jump of more than 100 deaths since Thursday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.

New York has 44,635 positive coronavirus cases as of Friday — 7,377 more than Thursday, the governor announced during his daily press conference. There have been 519 deaths, up from 385 on Thursday.

“That is going to continue to go up, and that is the worst news that I could possibly tell the people of the state of New York,” Cuomo said. “The reason why the number is going up is because some people came into the hospital 20 days, 25 days ago and have been on a ventilator for that long a period of time. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you are going to come off that ventilator, and that’s not just true with this virus. That’s true with every illness.”

Cuomo said it is “tragic” that the number of deaths will continue to rise, but that it is not unexpected.

There have been 138,376 people tested in New York, with nearly 58,000 of those tests occurring in New York City. Those testing numbers grew by more than 16,000 between Thursday and Friday.

There are 6,481 people currently hospitalized for coronavirus and 1,583 ICU patients. There are 2,045 people who have been discharged from hospitals.