China’s Wuhan opens another makeshift hospital to fight virus

Beijing (Reuters) – The Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 700 people across the country opened another makeshift hospital on Saturday, providing 1,500 beds, state media reported.

The first medical team has arrived at the Leishenshan hospital in Wuhan and patients will be admitted on Saturday, state-run CCTV reported. It said the hospital has 32 wards and a surgical operating room.

Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province, has been converting buildings into hospitals to deal with the high number of patients that have contracted the coronavirus.

The city’s first makeshift hospital, Huoshenshan – built from scratch in just eight days – started to receive patients on Monday.

Hubei’s health commission said on Saturday that 699 people in the province have died from the disease and it was dealing with 24,953 cases of the virus.