It may take weeks or even months for the New York metropolis to reopen, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

This, he says, is due to a significant lack of corona testing, even as officials elsewhere are already beginning to reverse restrictions on everyday life.

De Blasio, whose city is the epicentre of the corona crisis in the United States, said New York should run hundreds of thousands of tests a day, and hospital admissions should drop further before the economy reopens.

“The federal government, in particular, should get the message that this thing is not over yet, and if you pretend it’s over, it will only come back like a boomerang and make it worse.”

The United States has by far the most significant number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 750,000 infections and more than 40,500 deaths, nearly half of which are in New York State, according to a Reuters news agency count.