Pentagon to prepare 10,000 extra beds for emergency hospitals

THE Pentagon has begun work to convert hotels, college dormitories, convention centres and sports stadiums into emergency hospitals to cope with a flood of coronavirus patients.

Military plans already under way include establishing more than 10,000 extra bed spaces at a dozen buildings in New York.

Locations already visited by US army engineers include the Javits Centre in Manhattan, where Hillary Clinton held her election night party in 2016, the 5,000-seat Westchester County Centre concert venue, and student dorms at the State University of New York.

New York state emerged as the US centre of the outbreak with more than 10,000 cases. Donald Trump officially declared the state a “major disaster” zone, freeing up access to a $42billion (£36billion) government relief fund.

Speaking at the Pentagon, Lt Gen

Todd Semonite, commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers, said: “We’re talking about over 10,000 [extra beds in New York] that we are looking at right now. We would take the building over in a period of an exceptionally short amount of days, and we would go in and turn this into an ICU-like facility, This has to be weeks, this can’t be months. These hotels are empty.”

He added: “We’re [also] looking very hard at California and the state of Washington. We are in the states right now doing all the planning.”

He said army engineers were already on the ground in a total of 18 states. Buildings identified as suitable would be quickly leased in a few days.

In hotels, nurses’ stations would be set up in hotel corridors and rooms sealed to protect against infection spread. Medical staff from the states would be used to run the makeshift hospitals, he said.

Andrew Cuomo, the New York state governor, wants to increase hospital capacity from 50,000 beds to 75,000.

He also announced the purchase of 6,000 ventilators in the coming weeks.

Mr Cuomo said 1,600 people had so far been admitted to hospital in New York state.

He said one million masks were being sent to New York City and 500,000 to Long Island.

The governor said: “We are literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies. The state is obviously broke.”

In a warning to young people he added: “You’re not superman and you’re not superwoman, you can get this virus and you can transfer the virus.”

The Pentagon has already announced the dispatch of assets including two hospital ships, five million face masks, and ventilators to affected areas.

More than 3,000 members of the National Guard have been activated in dozens of states.

The National Institutes of Health estimated there could be up to 70,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US by the end of next week.