Fewer cops were out sick Friday than the day prior for the first time in 27 days — showing that the strain on the NYPD’s police staffing levels may be near its peak amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“The best email I got this morning, that I woke up to, [was] we had more people coming back to work and going out sick,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Friday in a Twitter Q&A.

Nearly 20 percent of the force, or 7,096 officers, were still out sick to end the week, but that number was slightly down from Thursday, when 7,155 cops had called out.

On Friday, 253 cops returned to the ranks while only 194 new officers went out sick, according to a police spokesman, who said the department started to see “some hope” in the numbers late last week.

“There is light at the end of that tunnel,” Shea said. “Hang in there. Hold the line.”

The commissioner warned cops, though, that it is “just as likely that you can get sick at the end of this [as] at the beginning.”

According to the NYPD, 2,314 uniformed members and 453 civilians employees had contracted the coronavirus as of Friday.

The pandemic disease has claimed the lives of 18 NYPD members, with two more cops dying over the last 24 hours.

“We’ve been climbing up a hill for a long time now and it looks like we are near or at the top,” a spokesman for the NYPD said. “It‘ll take a few days to determine that, but remember, going downhill is just as dangerous to the members and the public.”