City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley today announced another 311 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours since the last daily press briefing at 1 p.m. It was the second straight day of new case numbers of just above 300. Farley said, however, that the city was not getting complete reports from labs performing tests, meaning the numbers reported may be artificially low.

Farley said the city had also had 16 deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, representing a flat rate for the past 3 days. The city suffered a peak number of deaths at 33 reported on April 10.

The total number of deaths in the city from COVID-19 stands at 222. Of those 222, 111 -- 50% -- have been residents of nursing homes, underlining the risk the disease poses to older people in group living facilities.

Testing, Farley said, remains limited across the region. There are limits on the number of swabs available, the number of tests labs can perform and delays in results, with some labs taking five to six days to return results. Farley said the limits in testing are responsible for the city's guidelines for tests to be limited to health care workers and city residents older than 50 who have symptoms consistent with the disease.

Finally, hospitals are seeing increased demand, Farley said, with 778 people in city hospitals being treated for the disease. Still, he said, city hospitals are reporting 42% of regular hospital beds and 27% of ICU beds still available.