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New York City will expand its coronavirus testing capacity by administering “self-swab” tests starting this week at sites across the Big Apple’s public hospital system, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.

The new form of COVID-19 testing, which allows patients to submit samples of themselves under the supervision of medical personnel, will soon be implemented at eight sites through NYC Health and Hospitals, said de Blasio.

“There is a better way to do testing, there is an easier way to do testing, and there is a safer way to do testing and we’re going to start that this week,” the mayor said of the new coronavirus test during a conference call with reporters.

Previous tests required medical workers to swap deep inside a patient’s nose, possibly triggering a sneeze response that could spread the contagion.

The self-swab test is a two-step test that requires a nasal swab and saliva from a patient, de Blasio explained as he noted that the new way of testing better protects health care workers from exposure and also saves on personal protective equipment in the process.

“This is simpler, this is better, this is something we’re going to start using now aggressively because it will improve the situation for everyone,” Hizzoner said.

To do the self-swab test, the “patient takes something that’s basically a sterile Q-tip, puts that in their nose. They don’t have to go way deep, just enough to get a sample,” and then the patient would “spit into a cup,” de Blasio said.

“Much simpler, much easier for everyone involved.”

The new method will increase testing capacity from up to 15 per hour to 20 per hour “and then we will be expanding from there,” he added.

De Blasio acknowledged that there is a limited amount of private labs able to accept these new tests as he called on private labs to “step up.”

“We need partnership from the private labs to do the processing work. We’ve engaged in these conversations with them already. We need them to step up,” the mayor said.

The mayor also announced that the city is hiring 1,000 “contact tracers” or health care workers to help trace, isolate and support all New Yorkers with confirmed COVID-19 and find out whom else that person has been in close contact with.

“We need you to come forward right away so we can get you into this battle,” de Blasio said of the “experienced health workers” the city is seeking to hire.

Meanwhile, de Blasio said the Big Apple is “getting steadily better, but we are far from out of the woods,” in the fight against coronavirus as he reported the number of suspected COVID-19 patients in intensive care units across the city’s public hospital system is down as well as the number of people admitted to city hospitals.

People in ICUs throughout city-run hospitals went down from 144 on Friday to 122 on Saturday, while the number of people admitted to city hospitals for suspected COVID-19 also dipped from 768 on Friday to 766 on Saturday.

The percentage of people tested who are positive for COVID-19 remained flat at 29 percent between Friday and Saturday.

De Blasio called the daily indicators “broadly good,” but added, “it’s not the perfect thing we want.”