The USNS Comfort arrived with great fanfare a month ago, as New York was bracing for as many as 140,000 extremely sick people needing hospital beds. Many fewer materialized — only about 19,000 at the peak — and only around 160 patients ended up on the Comfort. Speaking on MSNBC, Cuomo said he thanked President Trump for the ship.

 "It did give us comfort, but we don't need it anymore," he said, "so if they want to deploy it elsewhere, they should take it."

The announcement came on the eighth straight day of declining hospital admissions in New York.