USNS Mercy deployed to LA to help aid COVID-19 crisis
Yahoo Finance’s Melody Hahm spoke with USNS Mercy’s Commanding Officer Captain John Rotruck, as the Navy hospital ship makes its way to Los Angeles to help those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Video Transcript
- Meantime, though, as we continue to discuss the fallout from coronavirus, we are seeing states and cities step up to battle rising cases. And I want to get out to California in LA, where Melody Hahm is, to give us the update there as they bring in a Navy hospital ship to help support. Melody, what are you seeing?
MELODY HAHM: Yeah. And Zack, of course, this is not necessarily an initiative that was spearheaded by California but actually mandated by the Department of Defense and FEMA that deployed the ship called "Mercy," which typically treats casualty combat wounds, deaths, and oftentimes only for military personnel. We know that on Monday the ship left San Diego and arrived to Los Angeles this morning, actually about an hour and a half ago, at the Port of Los Angeles.
And it will be treating non-COVID-19 patients. So basically as the overflow of hospitals seems to intensify here in the Los Angeles region, anyone who does not have symptoms, anyone who has an emergency surgery outside of pediatrics and obstetrics, will be able to be funneled to this kind of impromptu pop-up hospital that it has 1,000 new hospital beds. I actually had a chance to speak to the commander of this ship, who had a lot of interesting insights.
ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah. And I just want to play a little bit of that interview as well because it did explain kind of how this is going to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Here's what Captain John Rotruck had to say.
JOHN ROTRUCK: So when we talked about opening to the general public, we just want to be clear that we're not actually taking patients who might arrive at the pier. We're only taking patients via inter-hospital transfer, in other words, patients who are already admitted to local hospitals. We're looking to FEMA and the local and state officials as far as the demand signal. And we're ready to assist them in any way that we can. And we-- and we will support them in any way that we can. I can't really comment on how many folks are expecting assignment on what timeline.
ZACK GUZMAN: Melody, I mean, just here back in New York, we're seeing cases of tents popping up to kind of help with overflow as well. So whether it's tents, a ship, kind of all hands on deck here as people come together to kind of brace for what rising cases might be still yet to come.
MELODY HAHM: I want to point out that President Trump is actually planning to go to Norfolk, Virginia on Saturday, tomorrow, as this "Mercy" ship in LA is opening up to the public because we know another ship, the sister ship "Comfort," will actually be sailing from Virginia to New York City. So to your point, it is an all-hands effort, I think, for the most part. If there's any way to really relieve some of those frontline hospital workers, this is a way to do it.
ZACK GUZMAN: All right, Melody Hahm bringing us the latest from California out there.
