BUFFALO, N.Y. - Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday announced that, with nursing home residents accounting for a quarter of coronavirus deaths, he was taking additional steps to make sure staff members are being tested twice a week.

It comes as numbers show state regulated nursing homes have been hit particularity hard, with more than 5,000 coronavirus-related deaths.

“To help nursing homes do this, we’ve worked with all the private labs, identified a number of tests that we can send just for the purpose of testing people in nursing homes about 35,000 per day, we’re sending 320,000 test kits to the nursing homes today to help them do this," Cuomo said during his daily briefing.

The governor says he understands that employees might not be happy with the new mandate, but he does not think it's excessive.

He says getting tested just once a week dramatically increases the chances of infecting elderly residents - and that the 700 testing sites in the state make it convenient to do so.