The capacity of the US Navy’s 1,000-bed hospital ship Comfort has been slashed in half in the wake of the vessel’s reconfiguration to treat COVID-19 patients, officials said.
The USNS Comfort, which docked last week at Pier 90 on Manhattan’s West Side, had to restructure its treatment facility, allowing only for half the capacity it normally would have under the new directive to treat patients with the deadly virus.
“When you transition from non-COVID patients to COVID, the capacity of the ship goes from 1,000 beds down to 500 beds,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a coronavirus press briefing Tuesday, noting that he discussed the matter with Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, President Trump and Vice President Pence.
The hospital ship, Cuomo said, “can treat 500 COVID patients adequately and safely and that’s what we’re transitioning into operation now.”
A Navy spokesman said Tuesday that “effective immediately” the USNS Comfort “will accept trauma, emergency and urgent care patients without regard to their COVID status.”
“This is a complex situation that requires us to continually assess the situation on the ground and the needs of the New York City hospitals,” the rep said. “In order to admit more patients and relieve the pressure on the hospitals, it is necessary that we reassess our patient admission criteria to see how we can take on more patients.”
He added, “The ability to take COVID-19 patients on board USNS Comfort provides increased capability to care for high severity COVID-positive cases,” allowing for the makeshift hospital inside the Javits Center “to focus on lower severity COVID-positive patients.”
Trump announced Monday that the ship will treat coronavirus cases after Cuomo Cuomo made the request.
The hospital ship, complete with 12 operating rooms, docked in the city last month with the intention to only treat non-coronavirus patients in order to relieve the city’s overburdened hospital system.
But because there was a minimal amount of non-coronavirus patients in the city, Cuomo on Monday asked Trump to switch up the strategy aboard the vessel.
Last week, several patients infected with COVID-19 were mistakenly taken to the hospital ship.
A Navy spokeswoman previously told The Post that a “few” patients did test positive after arriving at the ship, but only while still isolated from the non-COVID-19 patients on board.
It was also reported Monday that a crew member of the USNS Comfort tested positive for the virus.
The individual was being treated in isolation aboard the vessel and the person has not been in contact with any other patients, ABC News reported.
“The health and safety of the crew is a top priority throughout this mission,” a Navy spokesman said Tuesday. “To mitigate the risk of inadvertent exposure to COVID-19 for the crew, the military treatment facility has been completely isolated from the rest of the ship.”
Additionally, the rep said, clinical staff aboard the hospital ship will begin the process of moving some personnel ashore to a local hotel.
“The move will include medical, nursing and staff corps who have significant contact with patients as part of the performance of their daily duties,” the spokesman said. “This move will reduce the number of crewmembers present in the common areas on the ship such as the berthing and mess decks, and make it easier for us to demonstrate social distancing.”