China's coronavirus hospital built in 10 days opens its doors, state media says
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A 1,000-bed hospital built in just 10 days to handle the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan, China, opened its doors to its first patients Monday.
The Huoshenshan Hospital was built specifically to handle patients infected with the novel coronavirus that has sickened thousands of people and left more than 360 dead . It is on the outskirts of Wuhan, a city with 11 million residents, where the outbreak is believed to have originated.
On Monday, the hospital — which covers 60,000 square meters (645,000 square feet) — welcomed its first patients, according to Chinese state media. There was no information about the patients or their conditions.
Construction began Jan. 24 with a crew of 7,000 people working around the clock. Chinese state media carried live video of the construction site and showed the sheer scale and speed of the project.
A second dedicated hospital with 1,300 beds is also expected to be ready later this week.
Medical equipment at the Huoshenshan temporary field hospital in Wuhan. AP
China's state news agency Xinhua reported Sunday the new hospital has a capacity for 1,000 beds, intensive care units and sections for diagnosis and infection control.
Hundreds of doctors and medical personnel have been drafted in from China's military to treat patients at the hospital, Xinhua also said.
Many of the 1,400 medical specialists have worked in the past to treat severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which the new coronavirus is related to, and the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the agency added.
Construction of the Huoshenshan hospital in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 24 and Feb. 2, 2020. AFP - Getty ImagesChina Central Television on Monday quoted project manager Fang Xiang, whose team worked on the hospital, as saying that a project of this scale usually takes at least two years.
"It takes at least a month to construct a temporary building, not to mention a new hospital for infectious diseases," he said, according to CCTV .
Thousands of workers worked in shifts to complete the construction, CCTV said.
China's state CGTN network showed a video of several workers who said they slept only two hours in three days while completing the construction of the hospital.
It’s not the first time China has had to build a specialized medical facility on a tight deadline. During the SARS epidemic in 2003, a hospital in Beijing was constructed in just a week.
Wuhan has been on lockdown for nearly two weeks with millions of its inhabitants barred from leaving the city. The Chinese government has not yet signaled when the lockdown could be lifted.
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I saw this different story a few years back after it was completed. (The company I worked for at the time was owned by Chinese business people so we had to watch to serve as an example of what can be done).Imagine. 57 stories in 19 days. Those contractors know how to get it done. Unfortunately they probably don't have much concern for the employees but damn. What an accomplishment.
A little off topic probably but I thought I would share.
It takes 25-30 days to cure concrete under normal conditions. There are ways to speed that up but none are recommended. Naturally cured concrete is the best by far.
I'm glad i won't be in this hospital. I'm just saying .....
Edit: Ah XD you beat me to it .......
This is scary. It is like the beginning of an end of times movie. I read where some said it could spread by touching a railing someone infected used. Some are estimating the infection rate to be much higher than reported.
I would hate to be one of those people trapped on that quarantined cruise ship. People infected and nowhere to go. It would be like waiting around to catch it.
All of you can talk about, either praising or criticizing how the virus is being dealt with here from what you've read and seen on TV - but I'm LIVING it. I've not been out of my home for the last two weeks but at least I'm not bored. After all, not only can I read all the insults being posted on NT by pro-Trump and anti-Trump members (I watched Trump deliver the SOTU live on TV), watch movies on seven 24/7 cable channels that show movies from around the world, mostly English language ones, and the news on CGTN (the Chinese English TV news station), Bing, Yahoo, Fox News, Canada Television Network (CTV) and the Jerusalem Post, read books (I still have many yet to read on a loaded eReader that a friend sent me), walk back and forth in my home and do exercises, stand out on my balcony and watch almost nobody walking outside (mainly because almost everything is closed during this last week of the New Year Holiday) although many would have been open had it not been for this virus, but at least I'm more than 500 miles from Wuhan (the centre of the virus), and there are only about 300 cases of the virus in my city of 32 million people, and thankfully I'm in a suburban middle-to-upper-middle class area surrounded by university campuses where people are generally more educated, aware, and able to deal intelligently with this crisis.
By the way, although I'm upset that the original whistleblower doctor was silenced, it very soon became a problem that was obvious enough and not only WHO but also officials from many nations have praised what China has been doing to curtail this scourge. I think they learned their lesson from what happened with the SARS virus.