NYC field hospital is dismantled despite beds being needed to open up the city again - as deaths in the state fall below 100 to 84 for first time in two months (10 Pics)
Another New York City field hospital is being dismantled after taking in zero patients, while the city continues to be told it must stay closed into June due to a lack of hospital beds.
The 670-bed makeshift hospital at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook is being demobilized before it takes a single COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 patient, despite the city only needing an extra 420 hospital beds to meet one of state Governor Andrew Cuomo's requirements for the city to begin reopening.
Cuomo has set a target that all regions must keep 30 percent of their hospital beds free - something New York City is two percent or 420 beds short of.
This comes as New York state's daily death toll dipped below 100 for the first time in two months, as Cuomo announced another 84 deaths from coronavirus on Friday.
NYC residents are growing increasingly weary as the city's lockdown rumbles on, while all other regions of the state are expected to reopen by the end of next week.
New York City continues to be told it must stay closed into June as it fails to meet some of the reopening requirements including a lack of hospital beds (the state's requirements above)
Friday was the first time New York state's daily death toll dipped below 100 since March 23
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal has already been converted into a facility offering 670 beds at a staggering cost of $20.8 million, but city officials said the hospital is now being dismantled.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the plans to convert the idle site into a hospital back on March 31.
The contract was handed to Texas-based contractor SLSCO under a no-bid emergency deal and the site was scheduled to open mid-April.
It wasn't ready until May 4 and, just over two weeks later, is being taken down before any patients pass through its doors.
The hospital was just one of many sites set up to ease the burden on the city's overwhelmed hospitals when the outbreak ramped up and transformed New York City into the global virus epicenter - all of which have been or are in the process of being dismantled.
The USNS Comfort Navy hospital ship was drafted in to Manhattan at the height the pandemic on March 30, but was waved off a month later on April 30 after it treated just 182 patients within its 1,000-bed capacity.
The Javits Convention Center treated around 1,100 patients before it too was converted back into its former role as an exhibition space earlier in May.
The three areas holding New York City back from reopening are the lack of free hospital beds and contact tracers which have to be hired by the local government
NYC residents are growing increasingly weary as the city's lockdown rumbles on, as all other state regions are expected to reopen by the end of next week
The 670-bed makeshift hospital at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook (pictured in busier days in 2006) is being demobilized before it takes a single patient, despite the city only needing an extra 420 hospital beds to meet one of state Governor Andrew Cuomo's requirements for the city to begin reopening
Then there was the 14-test makeshift hospital erected in Central Park at the end of March by Samaritan's Purse, which after treating 315 patients began packing up at the start of this month.
Over in Flushing, the Billie Jean King Tennis Center was also converted into a 350-bed hospital at a cost of $19.8 million to help ease the burden on the nearby Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
City Hall officials revealed it too shuttered earlier this month after taking in a meagre 79 patients.
Other facilities also include a site at Stony Brook on Long Island.
The USNS Comfort Navy hospital ship was drafted in to Manhattan at the height the pandemic on March 30, but was waved off a month later on April 30 after it treated just 182 patients within its 1,000-bed capacity
Both Cuomo and de Blasio have said New York City will not begin phase one of its reopening until the first or second week of June.
Long Island and mid-Hudson, the two regions surrounding it, are expected to reopen next week, which will mean all regions other than NYC have started reopening.
Cuomo set out seven reopening requirements that regions must reach before they can begin easing lockdown restrictions.
New York City is short on three requirements: the city needs to keep 30 percent of its ICU beds and 30 percent of its hospital beds free and needs to have 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
New York City is just two percent or 420 beds short of meeting the requirement to keep 30 percent of its 21,000 hospital beds free.
Questions are now being asked over why the makeshift hospitals have been dismantled when they could have filled this gap in the reopening requirements.
Questions are also being asked over the cost of converting the facilities only for several of them to not be used at all.
The federal Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $350 million on field hospitals across the city, according to reports from The City.
'As part of our hospital surge, we expanded capacity at a breakneck speed, ensuring our hospital infrastructure would be prepared to handle the very worst. We did so only with a single-minded focus: saving lives,' Avery Cohen, a City Hall spokesperson, told The City.
'Over the past few months, social distancing, face coverings, and other precautionary measures have flattened the curve drastically, and we remain squarely focused on taking that progress even further.'
Officials added that the costs are likely to be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
A City Hall spokesperson told DailyMail.com Saturday that the city is measuring the number of people in its public hospital ICUs as a reopening threshold and that the city does not want to open 'at surge capacity'.
'The city is measuring the number of people currently in its public hospital ICUs as a threshold for opening. We want that number to be at 375 for a sustained 10-14 days. On Friday, it was at 450, so clearly there is progress left so be made,' they told DailyMail.com in a statement.
'Naturally, as people leave the public hospital ICUs, we can expect others in private hospital beds across the city to do the same.
'We do not want to re-open at surge capacity - which is what the field hospitals allow for. They can always be redeployed and activated as necessary.'
The spokesperson added that it was the decision of the federal government and the state to take down the USNS Comfort and Javits Center field hospitals.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Governor Cuomo's Office for comment.
The ongoing uncertainty for New Yorkers comes as Cuomo announced Saturday there were 84 new deaths from coronavirus in the state on Friday, a decline that continues to be 'good news'.
This was the first time New York state's daily death toll dipped below 100 since March 23.
Cuomo said that at the height of the pandemic, he had been aiming to reach below 100 on the advice of a medical professional.
Hospitalizations and new cases arriving into hospital emergency rooms are also continuing to decrease but the governor warned that residents must remain vigilant over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
As of Saturday, New York state recorded 359,926 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 23,285 deaths.
In New York City, cases have reached 194,667 and the death toll now stands at 16,403.
NYC field hospital is dismantled despite beds being needed to open up the city again - as deaths in the state fall below 100 to 84 for first time in two months (10 Pics)
![NYC field hospital is dismantled despite beds being needed to open up the city again - as deaths in the state fall below 100 to 84 for first time in two months (10 Pics)]()
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May 24, 2020
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