Wuhan City is urgently building a new 1,000-bed hospital to treat pneumonia patients, expected to operate early next week.

The new hospital is being built near a resort complex, originally intended to serve local workers, located by a lake on the outskirts of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.

Construction machines, including 35 excavators and 10 bulldozers, were brought to the site last night. The target is a new hospital ready to operate on January 27, to cope with the acute pneumonia epidemic caused by a new strain of the corona family (nCoV).

The project aims to address the current shortage of health resources. This is a prefabricated building, built from steel structures, so it can not only be completed quickly but also save costs.

In 2003, Beijing had a similar project when the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) pandemic broke out. Xiaotangshan Hospital on the northern outskirts of the capital was built in just a week. Within two months, this facility helped treat 1/7 of SARS patients nationwide.

25 people died and more than 830 cases of nCoV virus infection were detected. The outbreak originated from Wuhan City in central China, where 11 million people live, then spread to other regions and countries such as Thailand, Japan, Korea, the USA, Singapore and Vietnam. .

The source of the new strain of the virus is thought to be from wildlife in the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and cough. There is currently no vaccine for the virus that can be spread from person to person.