Workers race against time to build 'high-speed' hospitals

Special grant

The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated a special grant of 300 million yuan ($43 million) for the two facilities, according to a notice posted on its website on Monday.

During a visit to the Huoshenshan Hospital site on Monday, Premier Li Keqiang－who is head of the leading group of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on prevention and control of the coronavirus－called for construction to be accelerated.

Since the first case was reported late last year, the coronavirus has spread much faster than expected. On the Chinese mainland, the number of confirmed cases climbed from 571 to 9,692 from Jan 23 to Thursday, meaning there are more coronavirus cases than there were SARS cases during the 2003 outbreak, which resulted in 774 deaths in 17 countries.

The technical drawings for the two new Wuhan hospitals were drawn up in just 60 hours by a team of 60 designers, including experts who worked on Xiaotangshan Hospital. Every piece of work in the project is counted in hours, not days.