NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a new partnership with drugstore giant CVS Health to help double capacity to test for the Coronavirus strain Covid-19 in the state.

In a briefing Sunday, Cuomo said the state of New York has doubled testing capacity to reach 40,000 diagnostic tests per day as more states and the U.S. government work with retailers, including CVS Health. The drugstore chain and rival pharmacies have stressed they have health professionals and convenient real estate like parking lots to safely conduct Covid-19 tests for Americans.

“Throughout this entire pandemic, testing was key to controlling the virus and now it will be key to monitoring the virus as we begin reopening in regions across the state,”  Cuomo said Sunday in his announcement.

The partnership with CVS, testing will come to more than 60 CVS pharmacies that will conduct 50 or more tests per day. The New York partnership comes within days of CVS’ disclosure that it was going to dramatically ramp up testing by processing up to 1.5 million tests every month.

CVS Health is escalating its cross-country effort to expand testing for Covid-19 with plans to open 1,000 locations by the end of the month, the drugstore chain said last week. At that time, CVS said it processes about 30,000 tests for COVID-19 a week in five states as part of a rollout that began several weeks ago with a focus on front-line healthcare workers and first responders.