Five New York City residents have now died of the coronavirus, as the number of Big Apple cases blew past 300, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday.
De Blasio announced three new deaths in an afternoon press briefing at City Hall.
The newly deceased were identified as a 78-year-old man, a 56-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman.
That’s in addition to an 82-year-old woman who died late Friday and a 79-year-old woman who succumbed early Sunday.
Each of the five victims had at least one underlying health condition — including diabetes and heart disease — that undermined their health battles.
“I am very, very concerned that what we see [now] is the rapid spread of this disease,” said de Blasio. “We’ve never been through anything like this. We’re all trying to make sense of this.”
A total of 329 cases have now been confirmed across the five boroughs, representing nearly half of the 729 cases statewide.
The first known state death came last week when a 65-year-old Rockland County man’s life was claimed by the pandemic.
Hizzoner additionally announced that he would order the suspension of elective surgery beginning Monday in city hospitals in an effort to ease the stress on the overloaded health-care system.