New York state saw its highest number of new Covid cases in a single day of the entire pandemic, topping just over 21,000 new infections on Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

About 8% of total all Covid tests were positive, almost double the rate of just a few days ago, according to the state health department.

"The winter surge in COVID-19 cases is a reminder that the pandemic is not over yet and we must take extra care to keep ourselves and each other safe," Hochul said in a press release Friday.

The latest data comes as the U.S. battles surging cases caused by the Covid delta variant while the newly discovered omicron variant spreads rapidly. Omicron comprised 13.1% of all Covid cases in the New York and New Jersey region last week, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.