The city on Wednesday night reported 81 additional coronavirus fatalities, raising the death toll to 280, city officials said.
The number of cases in the Big Apple also soared over the course of eight hours on Wednesday, from 17,856 to 20,011, City Hall said.
Queens recorded the most cases, as of 6 p.m., with at least 6,420. In Brooklyn, there are 5,232; Manhattan reported 3,616, The Bronx has 3,542 and in Staten Island, there are 1,166.
The increase in cases came as Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday night warned that half of the city’s population — more than 4 million people — will get the coronavirus.
“It’s a fair bet to say that half of all New Yorkers and maybe more than half will end up contracting this disease,” de Blasio said at a City Hall press briefing.
The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said the city may even exceed that projection by the fall.
