After 109 days of updates on the coronavirus pandemic and, later, the unrest and protests against police brutality and racial inequality, Governor Andrew Cuomo will end his daily briefings on Friday. 

The decision to end the briefings, which had become nationally televised events, come as New York's infection rate has held steady at around 1 percent of the tens of thousands of people who have been tested in New York. 

Seventeen people have died from the virus in the last 24 hours in the state. New York City will enter Phase 2 of the reopening on Monday, Cuomo said.

"We're going to turn the page on the immediacy of this crisis," Cuomo said. 

The briefings by Cuomo, held often in Albany, but also in New York City and communities around the state, became a form of appointment viewing, with Cuomo providing updates on infection rates, the daily COVID-19 death toll and what the state was doing to counteract the pandemic. 

The streak was in contrast to a prior practice of rare Albany news conferences for the governor, and his favorability ratings have skyrocketed in polls during the crisis. 

The briefings highlighted the governor's personality and his at-times tendency to lecture, while also giving him an opportunity to hold the spotlight as the state became the epicenter of the pandemic.  

But at the same time, Cuomo knocked other states and the federal government for a re-opening that has led to spikes in infections elsewhere in the country. 

"This federal government is making a mistake in the way it is handling this COVID crisis and how it is advising the people of this state and this nation," Cuomo said. 

And he warned New York's infection rate could rise again if people from other states travel here. 

"The states without the smart reopening plans are going up," Cuomo said. "If those states are going up, they could spread the virus to New York."