President Donald Trump said the US Navy hospital ship Comfort will leave New York City as soon as possible after Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it was no longer needed in the city's fight against the coronavirus.
The USNS Comfort was deployed to New York City on March 30 to help the city's hospitals as they struggled with a tidal wave of coronavirus patients.
The Comfort's initial mission was to aid these hospitals by taking all non-coronavirus patients. But it turned out there weren't many non-coronavirus patients to take, prompting criticism when it became known that only 20 patients were received on the 1,000-bed ship in its first day.
Following the outrage, Cuomo asked the president to sign off on the ship taking coronavirus patients, to which Trump agreed.
But to take coronavirus patients, the ship had to be reconfigured into a 500-bed hospital to avoid spreading the virus. But the Comfort never came close to reaching capacity, thanks in part to the opening of a makeshift hospital at the Javits convention center.
read more here: https://www.businessinsider.com/usns-comfort-leaving-nyc-few-coronavirus-patients-three-weeks-2020-4?r=US&IR=T
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