A CREWMEMBER onboard the USNS Comfort hospital ship has tested positive for coronavirus, the Navy said Monday.
The news came as President Trump announced the 1,000-bed ship – originally meant to relieve overwhelmed New York City hospitals and treat non-coronavirus patients – would now also be used to treat patients with COVID-19.
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"There is no impact to Comfort’s mission, and this will not affect the ability for Comfort to receive patients," said a Navy statement sent to ABC.
"The ship is following protocols and taking every precaution to ensure the health and safety of all crewmembers and patients on board."
A Navy official told ABC the crewmember did not come into contact with patients, and that no other crew members have tested positive for COVID-19.
The worker will remain in isolation out of an abundance of caution.
New York remains the nation's epicenter for COVID-19, with over 130,000 of the nation's more than 368,000 coronavirus cases.
Several temporary hospitals, including a 2,500-bed center at the Jacob K. Javits Center – are now being used to treat coronavirus patients.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had initially said the Navy ship would not being used to treat patients with COVID-19 – because it would be too difficult to clean the ship after.
"The Navy's position is they don't want to put COVID people on the ship because it would be too hard to disinfect the ship afterward," Cuomo said at a press briefing Friday.
"That's my rough interpretation of what they're saying. I know they're not taking COVID-positive patients. But they said that from day one, in fairness.
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"Now, I don't know the science of ship disinfecting to know whether or not they're being overly dramatic, so I take their word for it."
However, the governor's stance changed and he announced yesterday he had asked Trump to approve a request for coronavirus patients to be treated on the ship.
"We hadn't had that in mind at all, but we're going to let him do it," Trump said of Cuomo's request at a press briefing at the White House.
"It's set for COVID," Trump said.
After the ship was approved to treat coronavirus patients, Cuomo told MSNBC of the need for more beds to treat patients that have the virus.
"The original plan was they would do non-COVID patients from the hospital system," he told MSNBC.
"As it turns out, we don't have many non-COVID symptoms because when you close everything down, the silver lining was traffic accidents, crime went down. So, we really need help with the COVID patients."
Cuomo said the approval will provide much-needed hospital space to an already overwhelmed system as the city battles around a peak number of COVID-19 cases.
"So, that's an additional 1,000 beds with federal personnel managing that ship," he said.
"So, that's a welcome relief and the president granted the request."
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Before the ship was given the green light to treat patients with coronavirus, however, a number of patients confirmed to have the virus were accidentally transferred to the Navy ship.
An official onboard said "less than five" patients with the virus were mistakenly transferred onboard the USNS Comfort after initial screenings did not indicate they had the virus, Fox News reported.
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