Mark Esper confirms Navy hospital ships won’t treat coronavirus patients and will take weeks to deploy – By Ryan Browne (CNN) / March 18 2020
Defense Secretary Mark Esper made clear to CNN that two Navy hospital ships being deployed to help respond to the coronavirus outbreak will not treat patients suffering from the virus and will take weeks to deploy.
© Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images/FILE The US Naval Hospital Ship Comfort sits docked at the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida on June 18, 2019.
The Pentagon also confirmed they will provide 2,000 hospital beds, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that his state alone needs an additional 50,000.
“I have directed, as the President has mentioned, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort to be prepared to deploy to increase the nation’s medical capacity and we’ve also alerted a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals to be prepared to deploy as well as needed,” Esper said at the White House on Wednesday.
Cuomo announced Wednesday that the USNS Comfort would be docked in New York City harbor.
He called the decision to deploy the ship an “extraordinary step” because the Comfort is “literally a floating hospital.”
However, the ships will not treat coronavirus patients, they will be used to treat other illnesses or injuries, and free up capacity in civilian hospitals that are expected to be overwhelmed with cases of the virus. Also, the fact the Comfort is not expected to deploy for a number of weeks means it will not provide support if the number of cases and deaths spike in the near term, as many experts have predicted.
The USNS Mercy is likely to deploy sooner, though the Pentagon has not said where it will be sent.
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