New York City will close some streets to vehicle traffic, expand sidewalks and create temporary bike lanes to enable residents to adhere to physical distancing in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The announcement was made by Mayor Bill de Blasio just days after he alongside other city officials cautioned against a proposal to open up streets to pedestrians, saying it could not be done safely in a city as dense as New York.

De Blasio said in his briefing that the City Council had come forward with a vision for opening up more streets.

"Over the next month, we will create a minimum of 40 miles (64 km) of open streets. And as the crisis continues, the goal is to get up to 100 miles (160 km)," he said.

The mayor said the city would focus on streets in and around parks, where officials expect many people to congregate as the weather gets warmer.

De Blasio's announcement comes as some countries and cities around the world plot safe ways to gradually ease COVID-19 restrictions.

New York is the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, having registered 17,280 deaths.

The total COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. have surpassed 55,000, making the country the worst affected by the disease globally.

De Blasio also announced that New York City-run health clinics will soon take a new tack on COVID-19 testing, using a procedure that lets people collect samples themselves at a health care worker's direction.

Up to this point, testing has mainly been done by health care workers inserting a swab deep into a person's nostrils.