AFP Copyright: AFP

The naval hospital ship USNS Comfort will leave Virginia on Saturday, reaching New York Harbour on Monday, three weeks ahead of schedule, President Trump said at his daily press briefing.

The ship will help lighten the load for New York’s hospitals - now overwhelmed by the coronavirus outbreak.

The state is the centre of the US crisis, home to at least 37,258 Covid-19 infections and 385 deaths.

Trump will travel to Virginia to “kiss it goodbye,” he said.

“It’s an extraordinary step,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week of the ship. “It’s literally a floating hospital.”

The president also repeated his calls for Americans to return to work as soon as possible.

“We have to get back to work, our people want to work,” he said. “This is the United States of America, they don’t want to sit around and wait.”