Coronavirus patients delivered to hospital ship Comfort in New York by mistake: US officials

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Coronavirus patients delivered to hospital ship Comfort in New York by mistake: US officials

EXCLUSIVE - Multiple patients infected with coronavirus were transferred to the hospital ship Comfort from the Javits Center in New York by mistake, three U.S. officials tell Fox News.

The number of COVID-19 patients brought on board the hospital ship was estimated to be “less than five,” one official said. The information had not been previously reported.

The patients were transferred sometime Friday, according to the officials. At the time that the patients were transferred to the hospital ship, the initial screening did not indicate they were positive, officials said.

The top general leading the coronavirus response for the U.S. military told Fox News there was another COVID-19 patient who showed up to the hospital ship Comfort in New York earlier Saturday after being delivered by ambulance. The patient later tested positive on board while in isolation.

“We are treating the emergency situation that needs to be treated,” Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy said in a phone interview with Fox News Saturday afternoon and disclosed the new case aboard Comfort.

While Navy officials say the handful of previously unknown COVID-19 patients testing positive for the virus onboard is proof the protocols put in place are working, it’s also a sign of the complexity this pandemic presents for medical personnel battling the pandemic in New York.

Until Friday, the 3,000-bed makeshift hospital at the Javit Center only treated non-COVID-19 patients.  One day earlier, President Trump approved New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s request to have Javits treat COVID patients.

That meant all the patients at Javits -- a few dozen in all -- had to be sent to the hospital ship Comfort about 10 blocks away.  Some of those patients later tested positive on board, as Fox News first reported Saturday afternoon.

The hospital ship is located on Pier 90 on Manhattan’s west side and arrived in New York Monday.  The vessel has a “couple dozen” patients on board right now, according to chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.

Part of the protocol before receiving patients onboard Comfort is for a coronavirus test to be performed.  The swab test came back hours later, the patients remained in isolation and spent a night onboard the vessel, which is only supposed to treat trauma patients, not COVID-19 positive patients.

About a dozen patients from the Javits Center in midtown Manhattan were transferred to the hospital ship Comfort one day after President Trump approved New York Gov. Cuomo’s request to have COVID-19 patients treated at the Javits Center.

All the patients at Javits Center were then transferred to the hospital ship a short distance away from where they were isolated and tested for the novel coronavirus.

Up to the point of embarking aboard the hospital ship, the patients had only filled out a questionnaire and had their temperature taken as part of an initial screening process. It’s been reported that half of the people infected with coronavirus show no symptoms, according to the latest data.