Heavy equipment works at a construction site for a field hospital in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province.
China is rushing to build a 1,000-bed hospital in just 10 days to treat patients at the epicenter of the new coronavirus,
which has killed at least 26 people, infected about 830 and prompted lockdowns in at least a dozen cities, according to reports.
The 270,000-square-foot in Wuhan is expected to be up and running by
Feb. 3 and will aim “to address the insufficiency of existing medical
resources,” city officials said, according to the official Xinhua news
agency.
On the eve of the Lunar New Year, transportation was shut down Friday in 12 cities with a total of about 35 million,
including Wuhan and its neighbors in central China’s Hubei province.
In 2003, China built a hospital on Beijing’s rural outskirts in
barely a week to treat a rapidly rising number of people suffering from
SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 349 people in
mainland China and 299 in Hong Kong.
Xiaotangshan Hospital comprised prefabricated structures and Xinhua
reported Friday that Wuhan was building the new facility based on the
same model.
The city of over 11 million residents has been centralizing its
treatment of the coronavirus by isolating patients in 61 clinics and
designated hospitals.
Officials have said the news virus probably originated from wild
animals at a seafood market in Wuhan but it has since spread to several
countries around Asia and beyond.
Meanwhile, at least eight hospitals in Wuhan issued calls for
donations of masks, goggles, gowns and other protective gear, according
to online notices online.
Officials at Wuhan University People’s Hospital set up a group chat
on the popular WeChat messaging app to coordinate the donations.
The “Fever Control Command Center” of the city of Huanggang also
issued a call for donations publicized by the state-run People’s Daily,
asking for medical supplies, medicine and disinfection equipment. The
notice added that for now, they wouldn’t accept supplies from other
countries.
The vast majority of cases were reported in and around Wuhan, but
people who visited or had personal connections to infected people were
among the scattered cases counted beyond the mainland.
South Korea and Japan both confirmed their second cases Friday and
Singapore confirmed its third. Cases also have been detected in Hong
Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
One case also has turned up in the US. A Washington State man in his
30s has been diagnosed after returning from a solo trip to Wuhan.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/24/coronavirus-in-china-officials-rush-to-build-hospital-in-10-days/
