The U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort has been ordered to return to its homeport in Virginia less than a month after arriving in New York to offer surge capacity for overwhelmed New York area hospitals. The ship’s initial mission was to use its 1,000 hospital beds to serve as a referral hospital to help treat non COVID-19 patients. Within a week it was announced that the vessel would begin admitting COVID-19 patients, focussing on the more severe cases. It is not yet clear when the Comfort is scheduled to depart New York and where it will be deployed next.
