The floating hospital ship, USNS Comfort, has been docked in New York City for over a week. Its mission so far has involved treating patients in order to alleviate pressure from overwhelmed hospitals. However, until now, it was not accepting COVID-19 patients.
This news comes on the heels of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo confirming that deaths in the state have been flat the last two days; a rare piece of good news in this pandemic. Cuomo extended the social distancing restrictions in New York through April 29, mirroring the almost identical timetable offered by the White House.
The state of New York has been devastated by the novel coronavirus. Currently, the very populous New England state is the epicenter of COVID-19 in the US. Trump, who has been positive regarding Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, noted that it was Cuomo’s idea to open the Comfort ship to COVID patients.
“He asked whether or not it would be possible to use the ship with respect to fighting the virus, and we hadn’t had that in mind at all, but we’re going to let him do it,” Trump told reporters. “As we enter a crucial phase of our battle, we continue to send our prayers to the people of New York and New Jersey and to our whole country.”
The Comfort will be able to alleviate the need for as many ICU beds in NYC and surrounding areas. The massive floating hospital ship will also be treating patients from New Jersey. Issues like labored breathing, managing AFIB and extreme coughs can all be handled on the hospital vessel.
Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force have noted that this is a pivotal week for the US. Many states are expected to see their peak COVID deaths this week. The White House has recommended that states keep their social distancing guidelines in place through the month of April. This would allow time for the curve to flatten. As the number of cases shrinks, hospitals can return to normal volume and functionality.
There is good news in this pandemic: deaths nationally have trended far under what some models were showing. The government was making estimations for deaths based on some grisly computer modeling. However, new numbers from the past few weeks have shown that these models were overly pessimistic.
When experts plug in assumptions for computer models, they have to make educated guesses. Thankfully, between social distancing guidelines and aggressive medical measures, it seems the US is not going to hit the harrowing 100,000 to 240,000 deaths some models were projecting.
