California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a letter to the Trump administration that 56 percent of the state’s population — 25.5 million people — is projected to be infected with the coronavirus over an eight-week period.
In the letter, Newsom asked President Trump to deploy the USNS Mercy hospital ship to the port of Los Angeles until September of this year “to help decompress our current healthcare delivery system in the Los Angeles region in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.”
On Thursday the administration said it would send another Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, to the New York City harbor. Also on Thursday, CNN reported that the administration plans to send Mercy to Seattle in the next five to 10 days. Washington is one of the states hardest-hit by the virus, with over 1,887 confirmed cases and 68 deaths.
California Gov.