A view of the USNS Comfort at the Pier 90 on April 1, 2020 in New York City. The Comfort, a naval hospital ship, is equipped to take in patients within 24 hours but will not be treating patients with COVID-19. The ship's 1,000 beds and 12 operation rooms will help ease the pressure on New York hospitals, many of which are now overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced Friday that it will modify the screening process for people to receive care on the hospital ship USNS Comfort in order to reduce the backlog of patients at New York hospitals.

The screening effort will now occur pier-side and will no longer require a patient to test negative for the coronavirus.

"Each patient will still be screened by temperature and a short questionnaire," the Pentagon said. "This assistance will further unburden the local hospital and ambulance systems in these areas, allowing them to focus on the more serious COVID-19 cases."

A day prior, the captains of the U.S. Navy's two hospital ships said that the vessels have treated fewer than 20 patients since deploying to New York and Los Angeles.

When asked why the vessels hadn't received more referrals given the capacity of each ship, U.S. Navy Capt. Patrick Amersbach, the commanding officer of the USNS Comfort, said Thursday that he could not speculate if there was a delay and what the reason might be.

"The process continues, and we are honestly looking forward to seeing a significant increase in patients being transferred to the Comfort," he said, adding that each patient must be referred to the vessel by a local hospital.