The United States on Monday passed a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic: 200,000 people dead of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in the country earlier this year. 

But the rate of the infection has slowed in New York, once an epicenter of the outbreak. And on Monday, as the country surpassed the 200,000 death mark, only one person in the last 24 hours was reported to have died of COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a conference call.

The single death over the course of a day is the lowest since the pandemic officially began in New York in March.

“We won’t stop until that number is zero,” Cuomo said.

New York's daily infection rate stood at 0.98% out of 58,319 reported to the state, finding 573 new coronavirus cases.

There are 458 people who have been hospitalized due to the virus, a patient number that has been essentially unchanged over the last several days.