New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that he will ask President Donald Trump to allow patients infected with COVID-19 to be treated on the USNS Comfort emergency hospital ship currently docked in New York City.
During a press conference at the Javitz Center in Manhattan, Cuomo told reporters that New York hospitals don’t have as many non-COVID patients to treat due to the stay-at-home order, which has led to fewer car accidents, shootings and other trauma cases.
“I’m going to call the President this afternoon and ask him to shift the Comfort from non-COVID to COVID,” the governor said.
Cuomo recognized that the ship was originally meant to take in only patients without the virus to ease the burden on the city’s overcrowded hospitals, but he argued that “there is no preordained strategy here.”
“You have to feel it out day to day and you have to adjust with the facts, and we don’t need the Comfort for non-COVID cases,” he said. “We need it for COVID.”
Watch Cuomo below:
Cuomo says he'll ask Trump to allow COVID-19 patients to be treated on the the USNS Comfort ship. pic.twitter.com/r9i5aKPN90
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) April 6, 2020
