New York, Nov 20 (IANS): New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has warned that a spike of new Covid-19 cases was expected after the Thanksgiving, which is a traditional holiday for families and friends to travel and get together.

"As hard as that is to say, and hear, because if I had to predict, you're going to see a significant spike post-Thanksgiving. It is then going to run into the Christmas holidays, and you're going to see these numbers go very high," Xinhua news agency quotd Cuomo as saying in a statement on Thursdy.

"The travel is a real problem for us because this state still has the lowest infection, except for Vermont or Maine.

"If people are coming from Vermont or Maine, they don't pose as much of a risk. If they're coming from anywhere else, they pose a greater risk," he added.

The Covid-19 test positivity rate in the focus areas under the micro-cluster strategy, where the pandemic has been the most severe in New York State, was 4.11 per cent on Wednesday.

The statewide positivity rate excluding these focus areas was 2.38 per cent.

Of the 195,239 tests reported Wednesday, 5,310 were positive, or 2.72 per cent of the total, according to the Governor.

Nationwide, the state's Covid-19 test positivity rate on 7-day average ranked the third lowest, after Vermont and Maine, according to Johns Hopkins University's statistics.

On Thursday, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported 34,215 coronavirus deaths so far in New York state, the worst in the country.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has advised Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving next week, as the country continues to see surge in Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

More than 1 million Covid-19 cases were reported in the US over the last 7 days.

As cases continue to increase rapidly across the US, the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate at home with the people you live with, according to the CDC.