Hospital ships designated for the COVID-19 pandemic

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In connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, navies from several countries deployed hospital ships to combat the disease. Aside from providing health services, hospital ships would allow civilian hospitals to offload some of the patients, relieving the pressure on facilities ashore.^[1]^[2] However, this also means that each ship would battle the onboard outbreaks of their own ^[3]

As the infections have slowed or fallen short of worst-case predictions, the hospital ships became unused or barely used.^[4]

^ "Trump Says Hospital Ships Are Headed to Help Combat Coronavirus. It Could Be a While". Time. Archived from the original on 12 February 2022. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
^ "Coronavirus: Five things the military can do during pandemic". BBC News. 21 March 2020. Archived from the original on 13 August 2021. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
^ "Australia's landing ships could help the Pacific islands deal with Covid-19". The Strategist. 15 April 2020. Archived from the original on 30 January 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
^ "The Mercy and other Navy hospital ships, once thought vital for the coronavirus crisis, see few patients". Los Angeles Times. 1 May 2020. Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.