- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced late March that the USNS Comfort would be deployed to New York harbor amid the coronavirus pandemic.
- The USNS Comfort is a 1,000-bed hospital ship that has provided humanitarian relief and been deployed to war zones around the world.
- Like its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, the Comfort was not expected to treat any coronavirus-positive patients.
- The USNS Comfort docked in Manhattan on the morning of March 30 but is now set to leave New York as soon as possible after only treating 179 patients as of Tuesday.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The USNS Comfort — the US Navy's 1,000-bed hospital ship with decades of providing aid around the world — will be departing New York after being stationed in the city for three weeks.
"The deployment of the USNS Comfort to New York is an extraordinary but necessary step to help ensure our state has the capacity to handle an influx of patients with COVID-19 and continue our efforts to contain the virus,"Cuomo initially said in a statement when announcing that the USNS Comfort would be deployed to New York in late March.
New York has 50,000 hospital beds and 3,000 intensive care unit beds, but a 'Wuhan-style' outbreak could "overwhelm the city," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on March 15. The 1,000-bed ship also has 12 operating rooms and was deployed to mitigate New York's concern over the decreasing number of available hospital beds, although the ship was intended to treat non-coronavirus patients.
However, the ship only treated 179 patients in the span of three weeks, and President Trump announced that the USNS Comfort will be leaving New York after Gov. Andrew Cuomo said its facilities were no longer needed.
The USNS Comfort had strict restrictions as to who could be treated onboard: coronavirus-positive patients, as well as people with 49 other ailments, were not allowed onto the hospital ship.
The USNS Comfort has had a long history of being at the forefront of health crises around the world. Keep scrolling to read its history:
The USNS Comfort arrived in New York and docked at Pier 90 in Manhattan on March 30, according to ABC7.
Source: ABC7
The Comfort was not intended to not treat any coronavirus-positive patients, a decision that would have in theory opened more hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.
However, it only received 20 patients the first day it docked in New York. Following the public outrage over this low number, Trump accepted Cuomo's request to allow the USNS Comfort to treat COVID-19 patients.
Source: Business Insider
The ship then had to be reconfigured and limited to 500 beds in order to accept the coronavirus patients. But even then, the USNS Comfort still wasn't fully occupied with patients because the Jacob Javits Convention Center conversion into a hopsital had been completed.
"It was very good to have in case we had overflow, but I said we don't really need the Comfort anymore," Cuomo told MSNBC after a meeting with the president to move the ship to more affected areas. "It did give us comfort but we don't need it anymore, so if they need to deploy that somewhere else, they should take it."
The USNS Comfort will now be moved back to its home base in Virginia to prepare for its next, still undecided, mission.
The Comfort has been based in Norfolk, Virginia since 2013, according to the US Navy.
Source: US Navy
Most of its medical staff is based in Virginia’s Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.
Along with hospital beds and operating rooms, the USNS Comfort has several features that can also be found in hospitals.
This includes digital radiological services, a medical lab, a pharmacy…
Source: US Navy
...an optometry area, a computed tomography — or CAT — scan, and two "oxygen-producing plants," according to the US Navy.
There's also a helicopter deck for air ambulances to land.
Source: Navy Live
The ship has a total crew of 71 civilians and at most, 1,200 Navy personnel from the medical and communications teams.
The ship is 894 feet long and 106 feet at its widest point, according to the US Navy.
Source: US Navy
The Comfort can reach speeds of up to 17.5 knots, about 20.13 mph.
The ship was originally a San Clemente-class super oil tanker before it was converted to what is now the USNS Comfort in 1987.
The USNS Comfort has been deployed for a wide range of purposes throughout its life.
For example, in 2010, the USNS Comfort was sent to Haiti following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that ravaged the country.
In 2015, the ship was also deployed for 180 days for "Continuing Promise."
Continuing Promise led the USNS Comfort to 11 countries in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean on a "humanitarian and civil assistance mission" for six months," according to the US Navy.
Source: US Navy
It was also deployed in 2017 to Puerto Rico to aid in post-Hurricane Maria relief efforts.
The Comfort was docked in Puerto Rico for almost two months. During that time, its medical team aboard the ship saw 1,899 patients and performed 191 surgeries. The ship also supplied 76,000 liters of oxygen and provided 10 tons of food and water.
Source: US Navy
In 2018, the Comfort was again deployed to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Honduras for "Enduring Promise," according to the US Department of Defense.
Source: US Department of Defense
The USNS Comfort's Enduring Promise tour lasted from October 11, 2018, to December 20, 2018, allowing the US to provide medical assistance to each of the nations.
The ship saw around 750 patients per day in Colombia.
Source: Business Insider
In 2019, the Comfort embarked on a five-month humanitarian trip to 12 countries, providing surgeries, dental care, and optometry, and medicine to almost 69,000 patients, according to Navy Live.
However, the USNS Comfort has seen more than just civilian humanitarian aid trips.
In August 1990, President Bush ordered 200,000 troops and the USNS Comfort to deploy in Saudi Arabia after Iraq invaded Kuwait, according to the US Naval History and Heritage Command.
Source: US Naval History and Heritage Command
The USNS Comfort then played a role throughout Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm from August 1990 to April 1991.
The Comfort's sister hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, was also deployed, docking in Los Angeles earlier in March.
