What It Looks Like to Build a Hospital in Just 10 Days

How do you manage to build a 645,000-square-foot hospital in just 10 days? According to some of the 7,000 laborers who accomplished the feat, you don't sleep. Chinese state media have said a new 1,000-bed hospital began taking in coronavirus patients just outside Wuhan on Monday, and NBC News cites the state CGTN broadcaster's interview with some workers who said they logged two hours of sleep over three days while constructing Huoshenshan Hospital. The BBC reports the facility was modeled after Beijing's Xiaotangshan Hospital, which was erected in just seven days during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

The New York Times' headline declares that China came "close" to the 10-day feat, observing on Monday boxes of medical equipment stacked on a sidewalk, trees still in the trucks that carried them to the site, and hazmat-suit-clad medical professionals "dodging" active construction equipment. The hospital isn't taking walk-ins, much to the disappointment of one Wuhan resident who was turned away while seeking help for his cousin. Rather, it will treat those who are transferred there from other medical facilities and have been confirmed as suffering from the virus. (More coronavirus stories.)