USNS Comfort Leaving New York After Cuomo Told Trump it was no Longer Needed

Is the threat of the virus dissipating? It is still hard to say but an encouraging sign is a fact that the USNS Comfort, the Navy hospital ship is returning to Virginia after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told President Trump that it was no longer needed.

According to The Hill:

A Naval hospital ship that was dispatched to New York City to assist with a surge in coronavirus patients will return to Virginia soon so it can be routed elsewhere, President Trump said Tuesday.

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Trump met with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Tuesday afternoon at the White House, where the two discussed testing and funding for states. Trump said he also asked Cuomo about reallocating the USNS Comfort to another area of need.

“I’ve asked Andrew if we could bring the Comfort back to its base in Virginia so that we could have it for other locations, and he said we would be able to do that,” Trump said at a press briefing.

The president said converting the Javits Center convention space to a makeshift hospital has made the ship less necessary.

The ship will be prepared for its next mission whether that be for another hotspot in the United States or somewhere abroad.

Image Credit: Featous / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)