Update: Mayor Bill de Blasio said the total cases in New York City rose to 53 as of 4 p.m.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that the total number of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in New York State has risen to 212, with 12 new cases in New York City bringing the city total to 48. Two cases have been officially confirmed on Staten Island.

“This number, as I have said from day one, will continue to grow every day,” Cuomo said at the press conference. “The more tests we get, the more positive we will get.”

New York is now officially the second-most affected state, behind Washington State.

Cuomo said the United States has fallen woefully short on the amount of total tests conducted, with only about 5,000 done in the country thus far — according to the Department of Human Health Services — against 200,000 tests completed per-day in China.

“Our testing capacity is nowhere where it needs to be,” Cuomo said, adding that New York State is now in the process of directly contracting private labs in the state to increase testing capacity.

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In addition to announcing that SUNY and CUNY schools will close beginning March 19 for the remainder of the semester, Cuomo said there is an importance in reducing density in heavily-crowded areas by avoiding major events including the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade — which he said is currently being discussed by officials.

Cuomo said he believed “the coronavirus was in this country before people acknowledged, and that it is much more widespread than people acknowledge.”

“My guess is when we go back and we look at this, we will find that there were many people who had coronavirus where it resolved and nobody even knew about it,” adding that a test designed to locate antibodies created to fight the coronavirus — which would indicate an individual already contracted the virus — is in the process of being developed.

The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic but also said it’s not too late for countries to act. “We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief.

“This is not the ebola virus, we dealt with that,” Cuomo said on Wednesday.

“The facts here actually reduce the anxiety. We have 212 cases in the state of New York; 32 are hospitalized.” The remainder of the affected individuals are either in home quarantine, or have resolved, Cuomo said.