New York State saw a negative net change in intensive care admissions on Thursday for the first time since the coronavirus crisis began, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday.

The decline, which measures difference between new admissions to intensive care and patients who have recovered or died, was 17. The measurement increased by 302 and 84 on the prior two days, and has been volatile in recent weeks.

The state suffered 777 deaths on Thursday, slightly lower than the day before, bringing the total to 7,844 so far. Total hospitalizations, which includes those not in intensive care, rose by 290.

New York had created overflow capacity for hospitals, including at the Javits Center in New York City and the USNS Comfort, to help deal with the surge of coronavirus patients.

The decline for New York follows California Gov. Gavin Newsom saying on Thursday that the state saw a 1.9% drop in the daily number of patients admitted into the ICU. Newsom warned, however, that the daily drop was only one data point and is not reflective of a greater trend, but it's an encouraging sign that reinforces the state's social distancing guidelines.

New York has more than 160,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, putting it above every country in the world except the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Cuomo said the state is "flattening the curve" and performing better than some models which showed the health care system being overwhelmed.

"There is no natural trajectory. The trajectory is the trajectory we create by our actions," Cuomo said.

The state has shut down schools and non-essential businesses in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. The governor said the state needed significantly more testing in order to re-open the economy.

"We need a tremendous, mind-boggling increase in testing quickly ... as many as you can make, you can use" Cuomo said.