Shanghai to open more temporary hospitals for COVID-19 treatment

SHANGHAI -- Shanghai has opened and will continue to construct more temporary hospitals to enhance the city's treatment capacity for COVID-19 infections in its latest COVID-19 resurgence, authorities said Friday.

Four municipal-level temporary hospitals, three located in Pudong district and one in Chongming district, have been put into use as of Friday.

Covering a total of 500,000 square meters, the four sites can offer a total of 38,000 beds, said Jin Chen, deputy director of Shanghai's housing and urban-rural development management committee.

One temporary hospital under construction at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) will be in use from Saturday. Designed with a floor space of about 600,000 square meters with 50,000 beds in total when completely built, it will be Shanghai's largest temporary hospital.

According to China Telecom Shanghai branch, the upcoming temporary hospital will be covered with fast and stable 4G, 5G, fiber-optical broadband services and WiFi networks, enabling 5G disinfecting robots and delivery robots to aid the epidemic fight.

Meanwhile, district-level temporary hospitals in Shanghai now provide a total of 21,000 beds. Such hospitals with another 20,000 beds are under construction, said Jin.

Shanghai reported 824 new locally-transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 20,398 local asymptomatic carriers on Thursday.