NEW YORK _ The number of confirmed COVID cases in New York City surged past 100,000 Sunday morning, according to the Health Department.
The number of cases came to 102,504 as of 9 a.m., with 5,789 deaths _ marking 3,789 new cases and 47 new deaths overnight.
As grim as Sunday's milestone was, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city had been preparing for an even worse scenario.
Hospitalizations and deaths have been increasing at a slower rate, and the number of new coronavirus patients needing ventilators has dropped to 70 per day, down from a peak of 200 to 300 per day last week, according to de Blasio.
"This was a tough and painful week, but it was also a different week from the one we expected," he told reporters. "Last Sunday was a moment that we were preparing for the worst, and then we started to see some improvement."
The mayor announced a request for extra testing kits from the federal government, so the city can keep better track of the outbreak in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.
Nationwide, there were more than 540,000 confirmed COVID cases and over 21,400 deaths as of Sunday afternoon, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
