Mississippi asks US government for military hospital ship as hospitals become overwhelmed

A surge of Covid cases that threatens to overwhelm Mississippi’s healthcare system has seen the state ask the White House to send in a military hospital ship.

Officials have warned that the state’s health care system could collapse in the next week under the pressure of a dramatic spike in Coronavirus cases.

Mississippi’s Director of Health Protection Jim Craig said the state had asked the federal government to send a ship like the USNS Comfort, which treated sick patients in New York City in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.