The Defense Department will accept coronavirus patients at convention center medical facilities that the military helped provide in Manhattan, New Orleans and Dallas under a change of policy aimed at relieving the burden on overwhelmed local hospitals.
The three locations “will now provide support to COVID-19 positive patients in convalescent care, as well as low-acuity patients. “These patients, who require a lower level of medical care, must first be screened at a local hospital,” the department said in a statement Friday.
The change in policy came after a request from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to expand use of the Javits Convention Center, which originally was to take only patients with medical needs other than the virus.
“I asked President Trump this morning to consider the request and the urgency of the matter, and the president has just informed me that he granted New York’s request,” Cuomo said in a statement early in the day. “I thank the president for his cooperation in this pressing matter and his expeditious decision making.”
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