China has completed the construction of a 1,500-room hospital for COVID-19 patients to fight growing infections that the government has said are harder to remember and has blamed on infected people or goods abroad.
BEIJING – China completed the construction of a 1,500-room hospital for patients with COVID-19 on Saturday to combat a rise in infections, the government said they are harder to remember and blamed on infected people or goods abroad.
The hospital is one of six, with a total of 6,500 rooms built in Nangong, south of Beijing in Hebei Province, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A total of 645 people are being treated in Nangong and the capital of Hebei Province, Shijiazhuang, Xinhua said. A 3,000-room hospital is under construction in Shijiazhuang.
Virus clusters were also found in Beijing and in the northeastern Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces and southwestern Sichuan.
The latest infections have spread unusually fast, the National Health Commission said.
“It is more difficult to handle,” a Commission statement said. “Community transmission has already happened when the epidemic is found, so it is difficult to prevent.”
The Commission has blamed the latest cases on people or goods arriving from abroad. He blamed “abnormal management” and “inadequate protection of workers” involved in imports, but did not provide details.
“Everyone is imported from abroad. It was caused by the incoming personnel or by the goods imported from the cold cold chain “, it is shown in the communiqué.
The Chinese government has suggested that the disease could have occurred abroad and has advertised what it says is the discovery of the virus on imported food, mostly frozen fish, although foreign scientists are skeptical.
Also on Saturday, the Beijing government said travelers arriving in the Chinese capital from abroad would be forced to spend an additional week of “medical monitoring” after a 14-day quarantine, but gave no details.
Nationwide, the Health Commission reported 130 new confirmed cases within 24 hours by midnight on Friday. It was said that 90 of them were in Hebei.
On Saturday, the Hebei government reported 32 additional cases since midnight, the Shanghai media reported.
In Shijiazhuang, authorities have completed the construction of 1,000 rooms of the planned hospital, state television said on Saturday. Xinhua said all facilities will be completed within a week.
A similar program for the rapid construction of the hospital was launched by the ruling Communist Party at the beginning of last year’s outbreak in Wuhan.
More than 10 million people in Shijiazhuang were tested for antivirus by late Friday, Xinhua said, citing a deputy mayor, Meng Xianghong. It is said that 247 locally transmitted cases were found.
Meanwhile, researchers sent by the World Health Organization were in Wuhan, preparing to investigate the origins of the virus. The team, which arrived on Thursday, was under quarantine for two weeks, but was to talk to Chinese experts via video link.
The team’s arrival has been delayed for months by diplomatic fights that have led to a rare public complaint by the WHO chief.
This delay and the ruling party’s secretive orders to scientists not to speak publicly about the disease have raised questions about whether Beijing could try to block findings that would affect its self-proclaimed status as a leader in the battle against the virus.