ALBANY, N.Y. - Former New York City mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg will lead a new tri-state effort to trace coronavirus cases, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced during his daily press briefing Wednesday.

The so-called "Tracing Army" will work to track down people exposed to and possibly infected with coronavirus. 

The governor's announcement came just after Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled the city's plan to trace and isolate cases and one day after his meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss coronavirus relief efforts.

According to Cuomo, the New York City billionaire, with with the help of Johns Hopkins University and Vital Strategies, will design the program, training, provide a contribution upwards of $10 million and put together an organization that will hire tracers.

"We have to put together a tracing army," said Cuomo. "Because we will literally need thousands. SUNY and CUNY have 35,000 medical students that wer'e going to draw from."

Cuomo says he expects mass testing will show an infection rate of about 10 percent of people in the New York City area and single digits upstate.

Citywide, as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, there were 138,435 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an estimated 35,920 hospitalizations, and 14,996 deaths (9,944 confirmed and 5,052 probable), an increase of 569 deaths (382 confirmed and 187 probable) 24 hours earlier.

The borough-by-borough breakdown of confirmed cases, with some fluctuation in the numbers:

  • Queens: 42,637 confirmed cases
  • Brooklyn: 36,699
  • The Bronx: 31,130
  • Manhattan: 17,495
  • Staten Island: 10,405

New York state has reported, as of midnight Tuesday, 257,216 confirmed coronavirus cases and a total of 15,302 deaths (the state is not currently including probable coronavirus fatalities in its count).

Cuomo said 474 people died of coronavirus in New York between midnight Monday and midnight Tuesday, noting the figure is declining "gently."

De Blasio said there was a slight uptick in the number of admitted patients to city hospitals  -- 252, up from 204 on April 19.

The mayor says ICU patient numbers are down to 821 from 857 in the same time period.

There's also been a slight dip in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus.

During his meeting with Trump on Tuesday, Cuomo said the White House agreed to ramp up state testing and to waive the 25 percent state match for FEMA - saving New York hundreds of millions of dollars.

New York State has spent an estimated $2.8 billion in response to the coronavirus, about half of which went to New York City directly, according to the governor's office.