NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- New York State broke a new COVID-19 testing record on Friday, with over 159,000 tests reported, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Saturday.
"We do more testing than any other state in the country," he said, adding that the entire country of France reported just under 200,000 tests on Friday.
Of the 159,972 tests reported on Friday, 1,784 were positive, or 1.11 percent of the total, said Cuomo.
The test positivity rate in the "Red Zone" focus areas, where the pandemic has been the most severe, was 4.34 percent; the statewide positivity rate excluding the "Red Zones" was 1.02 percent, according to the governor.
Total hospitalizations were at 929, and there were nine COVID-19 fatalities, he added.
The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported 33,337 coronavirus deaths in the state as of Saturday afternoon, the worst in the United States.