USNS Comfort To Leave New York City, Pentagon Says
NEW YORK, NY — The USNS Comfort hospital ship is getting ready to leave New York City after pulling into the harbor about three weeks ago, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said during a Friday press conference.
"This is a sure sign of modest progress in mitigating the virus in the nation's hardest hit city, and is a welcome sign," Hoffman said Friday.
The exact departure date for the hospital ship has not yet been set, Hoffman said. After leaving New York, the Comfort will return to Norfolk, Virginia for resupply and go through its regular post-deployment procedures. The Pentagon will consult with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to identify a future coastal city for deployment.
"Our goal all along has been to use them in New York as needed and then when the need no longer exists, to prepare them to the next location. We will be looking to FEMA to identify where that next location is," Hoffman said.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that the Comfort was no longer needed in New York.
"We don't need the Comfort anymore, it did give us comfort, but we don't need it anymore," Cuomo said during a phone interview on MSNBC. "The big issue was testing, as everyone knows, that's going to be the big task going forward."
The 1,000-bed floating hospital was brought to New York City to act as an overflow valve for local hospitals. The plan was to treat mostly trauma patients, but was eventually modified to assist local hospitals in treating patients with coronavirus. In total, the hospital ship treated fewer than 200 patients during its time in New York, federal officials said.
A Department of Defense spokesman could not confirm when the comfort will leave New York City. The spokesman also could not confirm if the federal government has made a decision about ceasing operations at its field hospital in the Javits Center.
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This article originally appeared on the Midtown-Hell's Kitchen Patch
