New York reports 779 more deaths, governor says social distancing working

Cuomo, who has emerged as a leading national voice on the outbreak, said he never thought he would ever again experience a disaster on the scale of the September 11, 2001 ,attacks and called the mounting death toll "almost unimaginable to me." The governor acknowledged that it was a "very real possibility" that deaths in New York were being undercounted as people died in their homes, and called for continued adherence to business closures and other social distancing steps. Cuomo ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff across New York, where 6,268 people have now died from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, accounting for nearly half the deaths in the United States.