Many countries are struggling to deal with the rising number of COVID-19 patients, unable to handle them due to the limited number of hospitals. Some nations are speedily building new facilities to deal with the situation. China and the UK are examples of two such countries. The interesting thing is that these two nations have built new hospitals in less than 10 days!
Superfast hospitals
In February, the Chinese government built a 654,000-square-foot medical facility in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Made up of two floors, the hospital is equipped with 1,000 beds, 30 ICUs, and numerous isolation wards. The entire construction project was completed in 10 days. A live stream was also set up where people could watch the construction process online. The speed of construction is thanks to prefabricated units.
“Instead of first building the foundation and then following up with the superstructure (ie., the steel frame, the building, and the cladding), prefabricated units allow the construction of the foundation and the building envelope to take place in parallel… So the pre-fabricated element, which would be the Lego blocks that you would see being craned in, are actually fabricated off-site in a factory at the same time the foundations are being prepared on-site,” David Hartley, managing director of NTX, said to Business Insider.
The hospital was modeled after a similar medical facility constructed in 2003 in Beijing to counter the SARS epidemic.
In the UK, the ExCeL exhibition center in East London has been converted into the temporary NHS Nightingale hospital with space for 4,000 beds to treat COVID-19 patients. The structure is spread over 87,000 square meters. It has 80 wards, with 42 beds in each ward. Five hundred beds are equipped with ventilators and oxygen. At full capacity, this would be one of the largest hospitals in the world. Construction was completed in just 9 days, thanks to the help of 200 soldiers from the Royal Gurkha Rifles and Royal Anglian Regiment.
Plans are also being laid out to open more NHS Nightingale-style hospitals in other parts of the UK. “Conference centres in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Harrogate and the University of West England (UWE) in Bristol have been earmarked as emergency hospital sites to help ease the pressure on the NHS… Belfast City Hospital’s tower block is being transformed into Northern Ireland’s first Nightingale hospital,” according to the BBC.
Biased WHO
Criticism is growing against the WHO (World Health Organization) and its compliance in making the CCP coronavirus outbreak worse by siding with China. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened that he would cut off funding to the organization and accused the group of covering up the real scale of China’s viral infection. Earlier, Senator Rick Scott had also criticized the WHO for its failure in responsibly dealing with COVID-19.
WHO needs “to be held accountable for their role in promoting misinformation and helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic. We know Communist China is lying about how many cases and deaths they have, what they knew and when they knew it — and the WHO never bothered to investigate further. Their inaction cost lives. As soon as Congress is back in session, there should be a hearing, along with a full investigation,” he said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked all countries to be transparent when it comes to data about coronavirus infections. He also announced that the U.S. will be committing an additional US$225 million in assistance to help the global fight against the CCP virus.
