Ship arrives as NY death toll climbs

NEW YORK — For the first time since 9/11, the U.S. Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort returned to the shores of New York City on Monday morning as hundreds of New Yorkers watched the ship dock at Pier 90 on the Upper West Side. Onboard the USNS Comfort: 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, lab, pharmacy, CT scanner, and more than 1,000 military medical personnel needed to relieve pressure on the city’s overwhelmed hospitals starting Tuesday as a floating hospital for noncoronavirus patients.

When asked if patients requiring the help of the U.S.N.S. Comfort would need to show proof of insurance, Navy officials said that everyone would be treated.

The reinforcements are here, but will it be enough?

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked other states’ leaders to send their health care workers here to help and predicted that New York’s efforts to fight COVID-19 would pay dividends to other regions in the U.S. that have not yet fully felt its impact.

“In many ways, New York is just a canary in the coal mine,” he said. “What you see us going through here, you will see happening all across this country.

“We’ve lost over 1,000 New Yorkers,” Cuomo said. “To me, we’re beyond staggering already. We’ve reached staggering.”

As he and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio heralded the good news along Manhattan’s West Side — where Javits is located and the Comfort is docking — the virus’ vicious toll continued to mount.

In New York state, roughly 10 people died from the disease every hour between Sunday and Monday afternoon.