In this March 30, 2020 photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, gestures during a brief news conference as he stands beside a Rear Adm. John B. Mustin as the USNS Comfort. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday asked President Donald Trump to transition the USNS Comfort, docked at New York City, to begin transitioning to treat coronavirus patients.
The Mercy-class hospital ship was originally set up to aid with the overflow of non-COVID patients, but those cases have fallen off amid the citywide shutdown.
Now the ship's crew is quickly preparing to transition the hospital to serve as a field hospital for coronavirus patients, similar to the operation underway at the Javits Convention Center.
Indeed, the two federally run hospitals plan to coordinate their work to take advantage of their respective strengths and weaknesses.
"We're going to balance the levels of care required between the two stations," Joseph O'Brien, commodore of the Comfort's COVID response in New York City, told Cheddar.
Patients who are convalescing from coronavirus will likely go to the Javits Center, while more difficult cases will be funneled into the Comfort.
"We're taking some of the higher-complexity cases on board, due to the fact that we have a fully staffed hospital," O'Brien said.
The crew is currently working to reconfigure the ship so that it can accommodate coronavirus patients, which involves cutting the capacity in half from 1,000 to 500 beds.
This is necessary to create space so that more transmissions don't take place on the ship, O'Brien said.
One crew member of the Comfort so far has tested positive for coronavirus.
O'Brien said the entire crew was screened, not tested, five days before disembarking for New York City. Add in nine days at sea, and that almost meets the window of self-isolation. But, he said "that's the difference between screening and testing."
"Even though we did everything right. We were ahead of the curve. We were really stringent in our preps," he said. "That's what happens when you don't obey the order to stay inside."
Lawmakers probing the cause of last month’s deadly Maui wildfire did not get many answers during Thursday's congressional hearing on the role the electrical grid played in the disaster.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that federal disaster assistance is available for Louisiana, which is working to slow a mass inflow of salt water creeping up the Mississippi River and threatening drinking water supplies in the southern part of the state.
A new law in California will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour next year, an acknowledgment from the state's Democratic leaders that most of the often overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households.
From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the U.S. federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol.
House Republicans launched a formal impeachment hearing Thursday against President Joe Biden, promising to “provide accountability” as they probe the family finances and business dealings of his son Hunter and make their case to the public, colleagues and a skeptical Senate.
The FBI and other government agencies should be required to get court approval before reviewing the communications of U.S. citizens collected through a secretive foreign surveillance program, a sharply divided privacy oversight board recommended on Thursday.
The federal government is just days away from a shutdown that will disrupt many services, squeeze workers and roil politics as Republicans in the House, fueled by hard-right demands, force a confrontation over federal spending.
The Biden administration is finalizing a new rule that would cut federal funding for colleges that leave graduates with low pay and high debt after graduating.
The Biden administration is finalizing a new rule that would cut federal funding for colleges that leave graduates with low pay and high debt after graduating.
