The floating hospitals!: Everything you to want to know about USNS Mercy and Comfort

The US Navy’s hospital ships, which arrived on Monday to help out with the coronavirus pandemic has begun treating patients.

 The two floating hospital ships arrived in New York Harbour and docked on Manhattan's West Side.

The 1,000-bed floating hospital is to help local efforts to beat back the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

Originally designed to treat scores of servicemen injured in the war, the naval ships Mercy and Comfort, each is 894-foot vessels stocked with life-saving equipment.

The arrival of these ships come as the nation’s coronavirus cases crossed one lakh, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy.

The Navy hospitals are largely to be used for non-coronavirus patients.

The ship is typically used to support military campaigns and humanitarian crises abroad, along with earthquake and hurricane relief.

Over 800 medical staff, including doctors, nurses, mariners, and corpsmen, are aboard the USNS Mercy to provide medical care to non-coronavirus patients in Los Angeles.

This will allow local hospitals to focus its resources and intensive care units (ICUs) on COVID-19 patients.

Navy officials insist that they are doing everything to try to keep it virus-free. Therefore, every patient who boards the ship will be screened accordingly.

The ship has the same functions and capabilities as a typical hospital.

Out of 1000 beds, 500 are designated for minimal case needs, another 400 for intermediate cases, 20 for surgical recovery, and 80 for intensive care patients.

The comfort ship has been around for over four decades and been deployed all around the world.

With 12 operating rooms, 1,000 hospital beds, radiology services, a laboratory, pharmacy and ct scanner, the comfort is its own fully-staffed hospital

It responded to the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and showed up off the coast of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.