Coronavirus: rise of Wuhan pop-up hospitals an internet hit

Chinese viewers have tuned in to a live-stream feed showing the construction of two hospitals officials say will be completed within days.

Hundreds of construction workers with heavy machinery race the clock to build one of two temporary hospitals in Wuhan to tackle the coronavirus. Picture: Getty Images

As the new coronavirus continues to sweep across China, millions of Chinese viewers have been tuned in to a live-stream feed showing the construction progress on two temporary hospitals that officials say will be completed within days.

The two hospitals on the western and southern outskirts of Wuhan will collectively add 2300 patient beds, easing an acute shortage in the city at the centre of an outbreak that has killed 132 people and infected about 6000 others since December.

State broadcaster CCTV has been live-streaming construction efforts at the sites for the Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) and Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) hospitals since last weekend. On Tuesday, the feeds, which include aerial vision showing dozens of diggers on the site set to rousing music, drew an average concurrent audience of 18 million views, the South China Morning Post reported.

Four state-owned construction companies have been working around the clock since January 24 to build the 1000-bed Huoshenshan hospital using portable prefabricated components and shipping containers. Workers on the site are reportedly earning as much as triple the normal daily salary to ensure the hospital is finished on Friday and ready to admit patients by Monday.

Work began on January 25 on the bigger Leishenshan hospital, which will add 1300 beds and be operational early next month.

Both will be equipped with separated quarantine wards to minimise risks of cross-infection.

At least two other temporary hospitals are being constructed in the southern city of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, and in central Henan province.

The live-stream feed has provided the government with a critical counter-narrative to criti­cism of its handling of the outbreak. Wuhan’s existing hospitals have been overwhelmed by the rapidly rising caseload of coronavirus patients, with medical staff reportedly struggling to protect themselves from contagion and making ­online appeals for the public to ­donate equipment.

On Tuesday, Beijing deployed an extra 1800 doctors and medical specialists to Hubei province, along with protective equipment and medical supplies.

The provincial capital of Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, has been in effective lockdown since last Thursday and transport restrictions have been imposed to try to contain the disease.

The four new hospitals are being modelled on Beijing’s Xiaotangshan Hospital, a specialist infectious diseases clinic that was built in seven days in 2003 in response to the SARS epidemic that killed 774 people and infected more than 8000. Xiaotangshan is now being refurbished to accommodate coronavirus patients.

Xu Xiaoyuan, an infectious disease expert at Peking University in Beijing who worked on the SARS outbreak, told the Post the two Wuhan facilities would play a critical role in curbing the epidemic. “From the SARS experience, such hospitals could … greatly help reduce the fatality rate,” Professor Xu said.