By Jaymi Firestone | March 32, 2020

Amid the rampant spread of COVID-19, President Trump ordered the US Navy Hospital ship, USNS Comfort, to travel to New York City.

On Monday, March 30, 2020 the ship arrived in New York Harbor. The ship’s medical personnel will aid in treating patients who do not have Coronavirus, in an effort to free up hospital space in New York City to treat those who do have Coronavirus.

The Comfort is the second naval hospital ship deployed to help combat COVID-19, following the docking of USNS Mercy in Los Angeles on Friday.

New York Governor Cuomo wrote on Twitter, “We knew from the outset that expanded hospital capacity was critical. We asked and the federal government answered. This ship is a step forward in our fight against Coronavirus.”

USNS Comfort hasn’t docked in New York since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It docked in the gulf in 2005 when both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita destroyed much of our Gulf Coast.

The hospital ship holds 1,000 beds, which is more than most city hospitals. This will allow for safer treatment of patients who have other ailments, and for hospital staff in New York City to focus on containing the rapidly spreading Wuhan Coronavirus.

With numbers reaching above 65,000 positive cases in New York alone, the USNS Comfort couldn’t have come at a better time.

Here are some cool facts about this spectacular ship:

– USNS Comfort is 894 ft long. An American football field is 300 feet, so this massive ship is just 6 feet shy of 3 football fields long!!

– It has 1,000 beds and a staff of 1,300 civilians from the Military Sealift Command. It also has 12 fully-equipped operating rooms and several ICU areas on board.

– It weighs nearly 70,000 tons. One minivan weighs approximately 3,500-4,000 lbs, so this floating hospital weighs as much as or more than 35,000 minivans!

– According to the Geneva Convention, the USNS Comfort is not a combat ship, and if fired on, is considered a war crime. The ship has no way to defend itself. The crew carries no offensive weapons.

– The structure is equivalent to a 10 story building, and the distance from the
mast to the water line is 124 feet when the ship is fully loaded.

– Each arm of the nine red crosses on the exterior of the ship stretches 27 feet.

– There are 9 elevators on board that can hold 27 ambulatory patients or 6 patients on stretchers.

– The top speed of the ship is only 17.5 knots, which is around 20 mph. It took 8 days for the ship to arrive in New York.

– There is a flight deck on board for medical helicopters to land directly on the ship.

– The Comfort has been deployed to the following places:
— The Persian/Gulf War (1990-91)- Kuwait
— Operation Sea Signal (1994)- Haiti
— Operation Uphold Democracy (1994)- Cuba
— Operation Noble Eagle (2001)- Manhattan
(Interesting Fact: 561 injured patients, 500 mental health cases, and 1,359 massage therapies were on The Comfort following the attack on 9/11/2001)
— Iraq War (2002-03)- Persian Gulf
— Hurricane Katrina (2005)- Mississippi/New Orleans
— Partnership for the Americas (2007)- 12 Central American, South American, and Caribbean nations
— Operation Unified Response (2010)- Haiti
— Operation Continued Response (2011)- 9 different locations in the Caribbeans and Latin America
— Hurricane Maria (2017)- Puerto Rico
— Operation Enduring Promise (2018)- Latin America
— COVID-19 Response (2020)- New York

Resources:

NY Times

Wikipedia