USNS Comfort Arrives in New York<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Comfort will treat non-coronavirus patients, including those who require surgery and critical care, theNavy\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a wartime atmosphere and we all have to pull together,\u201d de Blasio said after the ship\u2019s arrival. He said preparations for the ship, including dredging, took eight days, much less than the two weeks initially expected.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hospitals in the city have been overrun with patients suffering from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus. New York state accounts for almost half of the country\u2019s more than 144,000 cases and more than a third of its more than 2,500 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The United States has the most cases in the world. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To ease the pressure, construction of a 68-bed field hospital began on Sunday in Central Park, and the white tents being set up evoked a wartime feel in an island of green typically used by New Yorkers to exercise, picnic and enjoy the first signs of spring.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The makeshift facility, provided by Mount Sinai Health System and non-profit organization Samaritan\u2019s Purse, is expected to be ready to accept patients on Tuesday but will not take walk-ins, and admissions and transfers will be managed by Mount Sinai, de Blasio said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
De Blasio, among a growing chorus of officials who have voiced frustration at the Trump administration\u2019s handling of the crisis, said the death toll in his city would rise soon if Washington did not provide more medical supplies and assistance. \u201cSunday is D-Day, we need help by Sunday,\u201d he told CNN.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Los Angeles, another\u00a0Navy\u00a0hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, began accepting patients on Sunday, also to treat non-coronavirus patients.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Authorities in New Orleans were setting up a field hospital at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center \u2013 the same site where thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees suffered in 2005 \u2013 to handle the expected overflow of patients.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan issued a \u201cstay-at-home\u201d order as cases in the state continued to rise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In nearby Washington, D.C., congressional officials announced that the U.S. Capitol would be closed to the public through April. They had previously said it would be closed until the end of March.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CHILLING NUMBERS<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
U.S. health officials are urging Americans to follow stay-at-home orders and other measures to contain the spread of the virus, which originated in China and has infected about three-quarters of a million people around the world.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we do things together well \u2013 almost perfectly \u2013 we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities,\u201d Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House\u2019s coronavirus task force, told NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show.<\/p>\n
gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Painted a gleaming white and adorned with giant red crosses, the 1,000-bed USNS Comfort sailed up the Hudson River, accompanied by a flotilla of support ships and helicopters hovering ahead, before docking at a Midtown Manhattan pier. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo, a prominent public figure …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2665,1034,507,3455,1884,1089,1070],"class_list":["post-7066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-battle","tag-coronavirus","tag-frontline","tag-hospital","tag-joins","tag-navy","tag-ship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/7067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}