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Stress may be the hidden cause behind the Big Apple’s estimated 5,000 uncounted coronavirus deaths, according to city Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot. 

“I think we can all agree that this has been an incredibly prolonged and stressful situation for all of us,” Barbot said at City Hall’s daily COVID-19 press briefing Tuesday.

“And we know that stress kills and certainly if you’ve got a chronic underlying illness, you’ve got prolonged stress that can contribute to premature mortality,” she said.

On Monday, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 5,000 unexplained “excess deaths” across the five boroughs between mid-March and early May.

That figure is on top of the city’s 14,7531 confirmed and 5,178 probable COVID-19 fatalities as of Sunday.

Barbot explained that the 5,000 excess deaths “are not necessarily immediately or approximately related to COVID, but in the long run will likely be attributable to COVID through a number of different mechanisms.”

She cited both stress and heart attacks.

“It may be that in the long run that we determine that during this period, people who died from heart attacks could have very likely died because of a COVID-related illness,” Barbot said.

Public health officials determine excess deaths by comparing current mortality rates to trends from previous years.

The city’s official coronavirus death toll, not including the excess fatalities, surpassed 20,000 Monday.

“The number of New Yorkers that have died because of COVID-19 really is staggering,” Barbot said.

“We are committed to ensuring that we count every single New Yorker who has died because of this vicious virus during this public health emergency. And the reason for that is because every New Yorker deserves that dignity, their families deserve that closures. But as a city, it’s also going to help our healing process as we move forward,” she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio downplayed the additional deaths, saying during the briefing that they likely don’t impact trends about the disease hitting the elderly, blacks and Latinos the hardest. The mayor said he’s focused on saving lives now, not looking back.

“I don’t want us to get so lost in the past that we forget right now there are things we have to do,” he said.

But Barbot, speaking just moments later, seemed to disagree.

“In the here and now, having that information certainly does inform our response,” Barbot said.