Coronavirus in N.Y.C.

Weather: Rainy for the first half of the day, with a high in the low 50s.

Alternate-side parking: Suspended through Tuesday because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Governor Cuomo said yesterday that President Trump had agreed to send a 1,000-bed Navy hospital ship to New York Harbor as the state struggles with the sharp rise in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases.

The ship is not expected to arrive until April.

The hospital ship, the Comfort, is part of an effort to expand hospital capacity, which Mr. Cuomo said would reach its peak demand in about 45 days, well before new permanent facilities can be built.

The question now facing New York, Mr. Cuomo said, is: “How do we set up temporary hospital facilities?”

The Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, construction trade unions and others are working together on a plan, Mr. Cuomo said.

As of yesterday afternoon, New York officials said the state had 2,382 confirmed coronavirus cases, an increase of more than 1,000 since Tuesday. In numbers announced later, 1,871 people in New York City had tested positive, compared with 923 on Tuesday. Statewide there have been 21 coronavirus deaths, including 11 in New York City.

Mr. Cuomo attributed much of the jump to an increase in testing. Of the 14,597 people to be tested so far, nearly 5,000 were tested on Tuesday.

[Coronavirus in N.Y.: ‘Huge Spike’ in Brooklyn Hasidic Community]

Here’s what else you should know:

• The State Department of Health is asking retired health officials to volunteer at hospitals “to treat seriously ill coronavirus patients including those that may need to be intubated.” In Westchester County, which has the most confirmed cases of any county in the state, officials are asking retired and nonworking nurses to assist at nursing homes, child care programs and other sites with vulnerable populations.

• One of the new cases was an inmate at New York City’s sprawling Rikers Island jail complex, the Department of Correction said on Wednesday. That came hours after the correction officers’ union said that one of its members had the virus.

• The hospitality industry’s problems continued on Wednesday, with the Union Square Hospitality Group, one of the nation’s leading restaurant companies, saying it was laying off 2,000 employees “due to a near-complete elimination of revenue.”

• The state Department of Labor continues to have trouble keeping up with the flood of applications for unemployment benefits. On Tuesday, it added staff, expanded hours and instituted a new system limiting filings to certain days. Those with last names starting with the letters A through F can file on Mondays. Tuesdays are for letters G through N, and Wednesdays are for the rest of the alphabet. On Thursdays and Fridays, anyone can apply.

And finally: Getting hitched, in a rush

The Times’s Steven Kurutz reports:

Annie Simeone and Armando Morales planned to get married sometime in the next month. They were just waiting for a day when both were off from their freelance jobs in film and TV production. Then, last Friday, they were told production had been suspended and they were out of work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We thought, let’s do it as fast as possible, before City Hall gets shut down or we leave town,” said Ms. Simeone, 38, who was standing with Mr. Morales, also 38, inside the Manhattan Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan earlier this week.

Ms. Simeone, who works as a production designer, and Mr. Morales, a carpenter, pedaled from their home in the Ridgewood section of Queens because the subway seemed too high risk.

The atmosphere they found at the Marriage Bureau was at once business as usual and strangely altered in the wake of the outbreak.

Many couples had stories of altered wedding plans and hastily made decisions that brought them there.

Lillis Meeh, 30, works in special effects on Broadway, most recently for the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Last Thursday, she learned the show was shutting down, leaving her without a job or health insurance.

She was sitting on a bench beside her partner, Dr. Amelia Baxter-Stoltzfus, 31, a resident at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, who was wearing her hospital scrubs. “We can do a domestic partnership and then get married later,” Ms. Meeh said. “We were going to anyway.”

It’s Thursday — make time for one another.

Metropolitan Diary: The cookie thief

Dear Diary:

Several years ago I made a special trip to a well-known Jewish bakery to get cookies that were kosher for Passover. It was the first night of the holiday, and I was excited to present the coveted treats to my family.

My boyfriend and I were taking Metro-North to my parents’ house, and we were running late. As we made our way through Grand Central, I had bags looped over my arms, and my hands were cradling the box of cookies.

Stepping up to the booth to buy our train tickets, I set the box down on the ledge next to me.

Tickets in hand, I picked up the bags and started to walk to the train. I quickly realized I had left the cookies behind. I turned around to get them, but the box had disappeared. In the short time it had taken me to take a few steps, someone had grabbed it.

Dismayed, we looked around for a few minutes more before running to catch the train. I couldn’t believe someone had stolen our Passover cookies.

As the train left the station and made its way toward 125th Street, I glanced over at the row of seats diagonally across from ours. A woman sitting there facing us was holding a bakery box. It was the perfect size for a pound of Passover cookies.

I looked at her, she looked at me, and before I could say a word, she blushed and handed me the box.

We spent the rest of the ride in silence.

— Sara Shacket