China coronavirus: rush is on in Wuhan to build treatment centre for up to 1,000 patients
- Workers paid three times their usual wage to get emergency facility built within six days
- Strategy echoes Beijing’s response to Sars in 2003
Hundreds of workers have been mobilised to complete the hospital – essentially a quarantine centre, with capacity for about 1,000 patients – within six days as the disease spreads rapidly across China to all provinces and autonomous regions, with the exception of Tibet and Qinghai.
As of Friday, China had reported 892 confirmed cases of infection and 26 fatalities. In addition, the US, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, as well as Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan have also reported confirmed cases.
According to an early blueprint obtained by the South China Morning Post, the new facility is going up in the Caidian district in Wuhan’s west. The facility is likely to occupy nearly 25,000 square metres and will accommodate 1,000 beds, according to official Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.
According to locals in Wuhan, the authorities are paying workers on the project as much as 1,200 yuan (US$173) per day – three times their usual wage – to accelerate construction.
The size and capacity of the new hospital is comparable to the facility built in Xiaotangshan town in Beijing’s Changping district in April 2003 to contain the Sars outbreak.
