Top Navy Admiral Begged Cuomo Admin to Fill Comfort Ship During COVID, Was Rebuffed

A US Navy admiral begged the Cuomo administration to send patients to the nearly-empty hospital ship docked on the Hudson River during the height of the pandemic — but his pleas were met with politics and paranoia, The Post has learned.

With city medical facilities packed with critically ill COVID patients in the spring of 2020 — and just days after the infamous edict by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to send COVID patients to nursing homes, which critics say resulted in thousands of deaths — the Trump administration sent the USNS Comfort, a 1,000-bed ship, to relieve hospitals of patients with non-COVID illnesses.

The Jacob Javits Center in Midtown was another federal facility. Both famously sat mostly empty during their time of operation — with city, state and federal officials blaming each other for the issue at the time.

A trove of emails from the government that was recently found by Peter Arbeeny was provided to The Post. Vice Admiral Mike Dumont, frustrated, called on the Cuomo administration.

“We could use some help from your office,” In a April 7, 2020 letter to Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide, he wrote the following: “The Governor requested that we allow the use of USNSCOMFORT to treat patients regardless of their COVID status, and we did so. We have currently 37 patients aboard the ship. We are also treating only 83 patients in the Javits Events Center.

The Javits Center had space for 2,500 beds.

“We have been trying for days to get the Health Evacuation Coordination Center (HECC) to transfer more patients to us but with little success. We are told by NYC officials the HECC falls under the State’s Department of Health,” The email continued. “Our greatest concern is two-fold: helping take the strain off local hospitals, and not wasting high-end capabilities the US military has brought to NYC. We appreciate the help.”

DeRosa quickly circulated the message of the admiral to the state’s top COVID officers, including Michael Kopy (director of New York’s emergency management officer) and Howard Zucker, city Health Commissioner. Also tagged was Michael J. Dowling (the private CEO of Northwell Health), the largest state-owned health care provider.

Kopy, speaking for the state, became defensive — and blamed The Comfort for overly onerous regulations.

“[HECC] are following criteria established by the comfort for admission to the comfort as well as criteria for the javits,” He wrote.

DeRosa, snooping on a plot, pounced to politics and told the trio that they should be on guard. Dumont then accused Dumont, accusing him of trying to put Team Cuomo in charge of the empty facilities.

“They are setting this up to say that we are the reason the ship and javitts [sic] are empty –I’m going to loop you guys on the email. we need to make clear in writing that what he has written here is not true,” She shared her thoughts with Zucker, Kopy and Dowling.

Dumont, who will retire in 2021 said that he was disappointed by DeRosa’s response, which was relayed by The Post.

“It is discouraging to learn they completely misread and misunderstood the request for assistance,” He replied. “We didn’t have the time or the desire to hold anyone responsible.

“My request was solely to highlight the low numbers of patients being treated and ask for their help in better utilizing the military medical resources available. There was nothing in the request that was not truthful, and we never claimed anyone was preventing the transfer of patients to treatment sites provided by the US military. How they reached these conclusions is both perplexing and discouraging.”

Team Cuomo has long insisted the ship itself was mostly a fed photo-op and that narrow regulations governing who could be admitted were the real reason it sat mostly empty. 

“The fed’s own bureaucratic rules prevented the ship from being utilized — but by the time it arrived and finally allowed COVID patients on board, fears about the hospitals getting overburdened had largely passed as we increased capacity, balanced patient loads between facilities and New Yorkers banded together to crush the curve,” Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo spokesperson. 

A memo from the state Department of Health dated April 7, noted in red that the “USNS Comfort cannot support patients with these conditions at this time” before going on to list 45 different conditions including “known pregnancy,” “all neurosurgical procedures,” And “any immunosuppressed patients.”

“These limits are based upon limited pharmacy capacity, unique medical equipment requirements the ship does not have, or lack of medical specialists in those fields onboard the ship capable of handling those types of patients,” Dumont stated. 

Within days, the official communication frenzy began. Cuomo’s executive orders Nursing homes are being forced to accept COVID positive people. Critics disagree The March 25th order This led to the deaths of at least 15,000 people. The order was justified by Team Cuomo pointing out that hospitals were overfilled.

Ron Kim, a Democratic Assemblyman from Queens, reviewed the emails and said that it was in line with a pattern set by top Cuomo aides. “controlling the politics of the moment rather than actually fixing the problem.”

“Everything was a conspiracy to attack the administration and I don’t think that is what the admiral or the US government intended,” Kim stated.

New York City’s March 30th, 2020 saw the arrival of The Comfort with much fanfare. New infections were rapidly spreading, hospitals were overflowing, and first responders were reduced. wearing garbage bags.

However, the red tape was too much. Javits and the ship only treated 182 patients.

“This was Trump’s federal government, which constantly played politics with everything related to New York and COVID and so it yes, it should shock no one that we were skeptical of their motives. As is evident from the emails, the red tape the admiral claimed prevented patient inflow did not exist. If his feelings were hurt, we’re sorry about that,” Azzopardi said. DeRosa did not respond to our request for comment.