New York City's coronavirus death toll has passed 9/11's

New York City has hit a devastating milestone in its COVID-19 fight, but things may finally be turning around.

On Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) reported that 727 people had died of the new coronavirus in the past day in New York City, bringing the official death toll in the city to 3,202. That's the highest one-day death toll the city has seen yet, and brings the total beyond the number of people who died in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

New York remains the hardest hit state by the coronavirus, with 138,836 confirmed cases and 5,489 deaths so far, Cuomo announced Tuesday. That death toll could easily be higher seeing as people are dying at home at an unprecedented rate, but cannot be counted in coronavirus death tolls because they hadn't been tested.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Still, Cuomo offered some signs of hope in his Tuesday press conference. ICU admittance numbers are dramatically down across the state, from 395 people admitted on Friday to 89 on Monday.

New hospitalizations were up on Monday, but the average of new hospitalizations over the past three days was also down, suggesting the epicenter state is finally near a plateau, Cuomo said.