NEW YORK, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 test positivity rate in the focus areas under the micro-cluster strategy, where the pandemic has been the most severe in New York State, was 3.72 percent on Saturday, down from 4.22 percent one day earlier, tweeted Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday.

View of lonely Time Square amid the Covid-19 pandemic in New York on November 5, 2020. (File photo: AFP)

The statewide positivity rate excluding these focus areas was 2.23 percent, up from 2.01 percent on Friday, he said.

Of the 145,642 tests reported on Saturday, 3,428 were positive, or 2.35 percent of the total, up from 2.19 percent one day earlier, he added.

The three major rates had trended higher for three days in a row from Wednesday to Friday in the state.

As of Sunday evening, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported 33,694 coronavirus deaths in the past eight months in New York State, the worst in the country.