Whatever Happened To … The Instant Hospitals Built In Wuhan For COVID-19 Patients?

Enlarge this image

On January 23, workers started building the Huoshenshan hospital for COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China. The photo above was taken on January 30. Construction was done on February 2, and the 1,000-bed hospital opened on February 3. Today it stands empty of patients.

Stringer/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Stringer/Getty Images

Enlarge this image

A temporary hospital set up in an exhibition center in Wuhan, China, on February 18. The hospital, one of the dozen of its kind in Wuhan, hosts COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms.

Barcroft Media via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Goats and Soda
Whatever Happened To … V Unbeatable, Mumbai Dancers Who Won ‘America’s Got Talent’

Many have also asked whether the «instant hospital» model can be adopted by other countries to fight the pandemic. Although prefabricated hospitals are gaining popularity, Pan says no one besides China has the resources or cost-effective labor to follow suit. It would be «prohibitively expensive,» for any other country, he says.

Instead, the makeshift hospitals that were converted from existing large buildings have already been adopted by others. On August 1, Hong Kong opened its first makeshift hospital at a convention center. Meanwhile, the U.S. has installed numerous «pop-up» medical facilities in convention centers, parking garages, stadiums, among other venues.

«These [makeshift hospitals] were very effective in treating patients [in China], especially mild cases,» says Huang. «They prevented infections that would have happened if those patients had been sent home to crowded living situations.»

Enlarge this image

A worker walks past bed frames as workers demolish installations at Wuhan’s first makeshift hospital built to treat patients infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus in China’s central Hubei province on August 14, 2020.

Stringer/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Stringer/AFP via Getty Images

A worker walks past bed frames as workers demolish installations at Wuhan’s first makeshift hospital built to treat patients infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus in China’s central Hubei province on August 14, 2020.

Stringer/AFP via Getty Images

Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

• COVID-19
• Wuhan
• pandemic
• coronavirus
• China
• Hospitals