NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- New York State's COVID-19 test positivity rate was ranked the second lowest in the Unite States, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Wednesday, quoting statistics from Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC).

New York's positivity rate stood at 1.39 percent, right after Maine with 0.77 percent and before New Hampshire with 1.5 percent, according to CRC, which annotated that "not all states report all test results. Positivity is based on a 7-day rolling average."

"But we have to stay cautious. Wear a mask. Avoid large gatherings. Wash your hands. Get tested," said Cuomo on Wednesday.

During his press briefing on Oct. 19, the governor quoted the same source as saying that New York State had the third lowest COVID-19 test positivity rate among all the states of the country, or 1.27 percent, after New Hampshire and Maine.

The state has been exerting a micro-cluster strategy against the virus, which means targeting small outbreaks and containing them before they could spread. The strategy has worked well and greatly helped bring down the infection rate, according to the government.

"We said with these micro-clusters and the overall state number you will see a day-to-day bouncing ... You get a micro-cluster that flares up, we attack it, more restrictions, it drops, another micro-cluster pops up and what we're seeing obviously nationwide is a very threatening rate of increase, and so far, knock wood, New York has defied that rate of increase," said the governor in a government press release issued on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported 33,435 coronavirus deaths so far in New York State, the worst in the country.