Friday, January 31, 2020

China's first coronavirus hospital OPENS after workers and volunteers spend two days converting an empty building into a 1,000-bed medical centre as the global death toll hits 133


  • The emergency facility in Huanggang city was up and running in 48 hours
  • A batch of coronavirus patients were transferred there at 10:30pm local time 
  • Death toll of the life-threatening infection has soared to at least 132 in China 
  • There are now more than 6,000 people confirmed to have been infected globally
By TRACY YOU and SAM BLANCHARD SENIOR HEALTH REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE-
MailOnline US - news, sport, celebrity, science and health storiesChina's first dedicated coronavirus hospital has opened in a city near Wuhan after workers and volunteers spent just two days converting an empty building to a 1,000-bed emergency facility.
The first batch of coronavirus patients were transferred to the Dabie Mountain Regional Medical Centre in Huanggang at around 10:30pm local time on Tuesday.  
The extra capacity will be crucial for overwhelmed medical staff in Hubei, the locked-down province at the centre of the crisis.
Another hospital is being purpose-built from scratch in Wuhan 47 miles (75km) away and is expected to be completed later this week after just a week of construction.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become the latest country to declare cases – an unknown number among a family travelling from China – and Germany has now diagnosed four people with the infection.
Germany also yesterday revealed it had hosted the first human-to-human transmission in Europe, between a German man and a woman travelling from China.
The latest developments in the Wuhan coronavirus crisis include: