New York will begin recruiting an “army” to trace contacts of those who have tested positive for the coronavirus, with as many as 17,000 people, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday during his daily briefing.

The tracers will be needed as part of a massive ramping up of testing in New York statewide, with the goal of reaching 40,000 COVID-19 tests a day.

The state is receiving help from the philanthropic organization of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The state will be recruiting thousands of people to perform the work, including state workers who are currently at home or working remotely. And the state will be turning to local, county, and state health department employees to act as tracers.

Tracers will be able to find people who have come into contact with those who have tested positive for the virus and have them isolated in order to prevent further spread.

“It’s a massive exponential explosion of numbers of people,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing. “You do the best you can because every positive you can, you go to isolate.”

The tracing effort is seen as key for slowly jump-starting the economy in the coming weeks. New York’s “pause” for non-essential businesses has been in place since March and ends May 15.

The pause is likely to be extended, though it’s likely to begin loosening in some areas of upstate New York first.

Hospitalizations and intubations continued to decline in the state, while new coronavirus hospitalizations are now under 1,000 over the last day. More than 300 people have died from the virus in the last day, but that is a decline over the last several days.

Meanwhile, New York will suspend subway service between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. everyday to clean each car. Similar cleanings will take place for Metro North and the Long Island Rail Road, but no suspension of service will occur.

Cuomo said buses, vans, and ride hailing cars will be made available to essential workers during that time to help them get to work.