China building 1,000 bed hospital in 6 days for coronavirus patients

Chinese city of Wuhan has started to build a hospital with space for 1,000 beds to treat the patients infected with the deadly coronavirus, Chinese state media reported. Till now, the virus has claimed the lives of 25 and infected more than 800 people.

Building machinery already on site

According to the municipal authorities, the hospital will be erected on a 25,000-square-metre lot and is scheduled for completion by February 3. All the building machinery including the 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility ready by next Monday, media reported. 

The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex which was originally intended for local workers on the outskirts of the city. Earlier today, China State Construction Engineering one of the companies building the hospital said that it was doing all it could to play its part adding that it already had more than 100 workers on site. The style of the facility is similar to one constructed in Beijing constructed during the epidemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, an outbreak of 2003. 

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Meanwhile, Wuhan, the epidemic centre of a new virus, has designated seven hospitals to concentrate the infected patients, China's state broadcaster CCTV said on Friday. CCTV footage showed patients being transported by ambulance from Wuhan's Union Hospital to one of the designated hospitals. China broadened its unprecedented, open-ended lockdowns to encompass around 25 million people on Friday to try to contain the deadly pathogen that has sickened hundreds. At least eight cities have been shut down – Wuhan, Ezhou, Huanggang, Chibi, Qianjiang, Zhejiang, Jingmen and Xiantao – all in central China's Hubei province, where the illness has been concentrated. In Beijing, major public events were cancelled, including traditional temple fairs that are a staple of Lunar New Year celebrations.

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