China Creates New Coronavirus Hospital Amidst Fresh Cases in the Northeast

• The 13-storey former office building was transformed into a temporary hospital with 580 beds.
• The facility will be housing patients who tested positive but show no symptoms.
• China has increased its efforts on screening new arrivals from abroad. The country now regards the virus as a “foreign problem.”

In Suifenhe, a prefecture-level city where the land border between China and Russia is located, Chinese workers transformed a 13-storey building into a new coronavirus hospital. This is the government’s response to fresh cases in the northeastern part of the country.

China’s recent cases were mostly imported, local reports say. Russia is cited as being the largest source of these cases, hence the move to put up a hospital near the border.

The new hospital houses 580 beds that will house patients without symptoms.

China became concerned about imported cases and asymptomatic patients since these people can still infect others. Earlier, China was able to slash the overall infection rate in the country after implementing strict containment measures.

Suifenhe is a prefecture-level city where the land border between China and Russia is located.

Currently, Suifenhe has at least 243 imported cases of the virus out of almost 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases. More than 100 individuals in the area tested positive but are asymptomatic.

Suifenhe, which is a remote city in Heilongjiang Province, was recently placed under full lockdown.

Work on turning the former office building into a temporary hospital started on April 6 and was almost completely finished by April 11.

The hospital has 13 floors, with 9 designated for treating virus patients who show no symptoms.

Hundreds of medical workers, who will be coming from different parts of Heilongjiang and other provinces, will be assigned to the hospital.

The hospital staff will include 22 experts from the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, which operates under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Suifenhe will be able to accommodate testing for up to 1,000 cases per day, as well as nucleic acid tests and other forms of research for the control and prevention of the virus.

China has increased its efforts on screening new arrivals from abroad. The country now regards the virus as a “foreign problem” after it has claimed to drop the new number of cases to zero.