China is once again launching instant hospitals to deal with its latest wave of COVID-19 patients.
A 1,500-room hospital to treat people with coronavirus ended Saturday after just five days of construction. The hospital is one of six, with a total of 6,500 rooms built in Nangong, southern Beijing, Hebei Province, The Associated Press reported. Another 3,000-room hospital is under construction in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province.
After largely containing the virus that emerged in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019, China is seeing a new wave of infections that it looks to expect to worsen. A total of 645 people are currently being treated in Nangong, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency. Virus groups were also found in Beijing and other provinces.
The speed with which the new hospitals are being built echoes the six-day effort generated by several hospitals in Wuhan last January and February.
The government said the latest cases are spreading unusually, and blamed the latest wave on infected people or goods coming from abroad. “It’s harder to handle,” a government statement said, according to The Independent. “Community transmission has already occurred when the epidemic is found, so it is difficult to prevent it.”
Also on Saturday, the Beijing municipal government said travelers arriving in the Chinese capital from abroad should spend an additional week of “medical surveillance” after a 14-day quarantine, but gave no details. .
Nationwide, the Health Commission reported 130 new confirmed cases within 24 hours through midnight on Friday. It was said that 90 of these were in Hebei.