Work nearly finished on Detroit field hospital

Work is nearly complete on the week-long effort to transform a convention center in Detroit into a 1,000-bed field hospital used to treat coronavirus patients.

"We're probably at the 90-percent level right now. So, just kind of doing the final touches, finishing up some walls, kind of getting the last kind of details nailed out," Mike Allis, a project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Monday.

The construction project is taking place at the downtown TCF Center, formerly known as Cobo Center.

Allis said the construction work has "gone extremely smooth."

"When you go back to about a week ago, it was bare floor here," he said. "So, to go from bare floor with chalk on the floor to what I call functional facility, it's been pretty crazy."

Michigan has reported at least 17,221 coronavirus cases and 727 deaths, mostly concentrated in Detroit and its suburbs. The state on Monday reported 1,503 new confirmed cases and 110 additional deaths. It was the largest daily jump in deaths yet.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. Older adults and people with existing health problems are among those particularly susceptible to more severe illness, including pneumonia.