Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an executive order on Saturday in the ongoing war against COVID-19 that will allow pharmacies to collect samples of tests for the virus.

"We're going to authorize all independent pharmacists in the state to be sites for testing,” said the governor. “My guess is that pharmacists will gladly take us up on this."

The executive order will unlock a network of more than 5,000 pharmacies as COVID-19 testing locations. While some pharmacies are already performing such tests, the new walk-in tests will be offered to first responders, health care workers and essential employees.

Yonkers pharmacist Anthony Ciarletta said the latest action is what he and his colleagues have been hoping for.

"Testing is what we need. There's no way the hospitals and doctors can do it all alone,” he said. “You need pharmacists to rise to this challenge and get it done."

Pharmacy employees will administer the test swabs then send the samples to state approved labs for processing. The new initiative could begin as early as next week.