The Comfort, a 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship is now taking patients. The converted oil tanker will take on non-coronavirus patients, including those who require surgery and critical care. But as of Friday morning, only 20 patients were reportedly onboard, and the staff of 1,200 was mostly idle.

New York City hospitals have been inundated with patients suffering from COVID-19. When the ship first docked in Manhattan, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio was optimistic.

"This is like adding a whole another hospital to New York City. It's like think of all the big hospitals in New York City, Bellevue and all the other famous hospitals we think of. It's like another one of them just floated right up to help us right now," De Blasio said.

Now one of the city's doctors is calling the situation "a joke."

Bureaucracy is being blamed for the lack of patients being admitted to the ship. Currently, patients must first be sent to area hospitals to be evaluated and given a COVID-19 test.  A Navy spokesperson says they hope to change the rules to allow patients to come straight to the ship and be evaluated there.

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