The World Health Organization now estimates that nearly 15 million people have died either directly by the coronavirus or because of its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years.

On Thursday, New York state reported 10,251 new cases.

It's the first time since January that New York saw over 10,000 new cases in a single day - and it's expected to continue rising over the next couple weeks.

These new variants are highly infectious, and people are being less careful.

Thankfully, experts say the new variants are less severe. They recommend keeping a mask on hand just in case.